


Stand Again

by deustiel



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Doctor Who, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Cas as the Doctor, Castiel as the Doctor, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2013, Doctor Who fusion, Doctor!Cas, Doctor!Castiel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 05:10:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deustiel/pseuds/deustiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is a Soldier of the Lord of Time, traveling between universes, righting timelines, and bringing harmony to the multi-verse.  In one universe he rescues Dean Winchester from Hell, but when he gets pulled back to that universe he realizes that his job there is not quite done.  Then Dean doesn't resolve along with the rest of his universe, and Castiel finds himself with an unwilling companion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  [Art Masterpost](http://lichtenstrange.livejournal.com/3201.html)
> 
> (Title is from the song [Carry Me Home by the Killers](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUanPHjen04) \- all other music will be provided when relevant as well as in a list at the end of the fic to avoid spoilers)
> 
> Firstly a HUGE thank you to my partner in deadline-panic, aka my wonderful artist [Ana](http://lichtenstrange.tumblr.com/) who has (so far!) made two beautiful pieces for this fic (which can be found at the linked Art Masterpost as well as at the appropriate places in the story); I'm so glad that we got to work together!
> 
> Next off I wish I could give great big hugs to [Michelle](http://deanghostchester.tumblr.com/), my partner in omg-how-do-words-and-bigbang, and [Sophie](http://lifeastheteenagersseeit.tumblr.com/) aka the nicest person ever for listening to me rant rave and cry while writing this, but alas they both live too far away for that to be possible. I am extremely thankful for their support and company during the tough task of getting ideas from my head onto my laptop. And of course an extra huge thank you to Sophie for being my beta - you are lovely and amazing and I love you a lot.
> 
> I also feel that I should extend a thank you to the [DeanCas Bigbang Challenge](http://deancasbigbang.livejournal.com/) as a whole, because without it I highly doubt this fic would have gone past the idea I had in my head way back in April. This is my first ever shot at both Supernatural and Dean/Cas, and without the motivation of a deadline and artwork I probably wouldn't have ever come close to completing it and it would have sat gathered dust on my harddrive forever.
> 
> Now that that's all out of the way, I hope you enjoy the fic!

The Soldiers were the first beings in the multi-verse.

They knew this because they were told. In that moment, the first infinite moment of an infinite number of moments to come, their master spoke to them. It had a plan, and would need their help to fulfill it. It filled the minds of its Soldiers with all of the knowledge it had, gave them their instructions and the abilities they would need to complete their task – and then time started.

And it hasn't stopped.

It didn't stop when universes started resolving, the multi-verse inherently striving for perfection, to reduce itself down to one perfect universe; it didn't stop when the race that was helping it along corrupted themselves, nearly taking the entire multi-verse down with them. And even after the race was wiped out by one of their own, time kept going.

But now only one Soldier remains to watch time soldier on.

-x-

It was dark and blindingly bright all at once. His body was as cold as the void of space, frozen right down to the bone, and yet the surface of his skin felt hotter than the flames of a dying sun. Castiel was in Hell, but before he could retreat to safety he had a task to complete.

He closed his eyes, the physics of the dimension pocket wreaking havoc on his eyes and brain, and relied on his time sense to lead him to where he needed to be. After what seemed like forever and no time at all (he was having difficulty distinguishing between the time passing in Hell and in the rest of the multi-verse), he found his objective. A soul that had been called Dean Winchester before it had been pulled into Hell.

He collected every piece of Dean Winchester, holding off the other souls and consciousnesses that sought to do it harm, and returned to his ship to transport it out of Hell and take it back the main universe. As his ship travelled he constructed a new body for the soul he had rescued.

Dean Winchester had been human, so while that fact gave Castiel some idea of what the finished product would look like he still followed his time sense, reaching into the past of the universe he was entering and allowing it to guide his hand.

He finished just as his ship landed, bringing him to wherever he would need to deposit Dean Winchester so that the human could fulfill his own purpose. Now that they were in the main universe Castiel could sense that its timeline needed to be brought in line with that of another, more ideal universe, eliminating the need for this one's existence.

Returning to his ship after depositing Dean Winchester's new body, recently reendowed with his soul, Castiel stopped just inside the door, pausing to reach out to the universe's timeline and ensure that everything had been righted by Dean Winchester's return. He could feel it as the pieces fell systematically into place, the timeline beginning to relax into its original state. Castiel knew that the universe would soon start to resolve into nothing and disappear from existence. His task complete, he moved to the controls in the centre of the room, and directed his ship on to the next universe that needed fixing.

-x-

Castiel had visited two universes since the one where he reincarnated Dean Winchester, righting the stress points in the timeline of a universe that was currently ideal and resolving the second, when his ship shuddered. This confused Castiel, as his ship was in between universes, and thus immune to rips and other imperfections in the fourth dimension – which were the only things that Castiel knew of that could cause his ship to be disturbed as it travelled.

There were no further perceptible physical disturbances, but as Castiel watched one of the monitors he could see that his ship was being pulled off-course. He lowered his eyebrows and tilted his head up and slightly to the side, looking up at the light of the center column and silently requesting any answers that the Eye was willing to offer. It offered him none, but he didn't have long to wait to begin to discover them for himself.

His ship entered a universe that it hadn't been bound for, and landed almost immediately. Castiel used his time sense to figure out where he was, and wondered briefly if perhaps he was falling ill, for it felt as if he had ended up back in Dean Winchester's universe – and that should have been impossible, as more than enough multi-versal time had passed for the universe to have resolved itself completely and disappeared from existence.

He reached out further, trying to find an explanation for the universe's continued presence. Finding a lead he followed it, and quickly realized that there was still an event that had to occur before the universe could resolve, and it was one that required Castiel's direct assistance. Reflecting back on it briefly, he saw that he had been slightly hasty in leaving the universe the first time, experience telling him that his job was done and that he could leave the universe to sort itself out – he must have left before the timeline had smoothed out enough to reveal this new requirement. It was rare that a universe required two separate instances of his intervention, but it certainly wasn't the first time it had happened. What was odd, however, was that he had been brought back to this universe so quickly: while it wasn't completely stable it wasn't an imminent threat to the rest of the multi-verse either. He didn't understand why this situation was so urgent, but it wasn't his place to question the Lord.

He could now see that he had been brought to the point in the universe's timeline where he needed to be, but before turning to face the door he pulled one of the monitors around so that he could see the scene that existed outside of his ship, having learned long ago that being aware of any potential hazards would help him in completing his tasks.

It was Earth, of course; Dean Winchester had been a human from the early twenty-first century, which was before humans branched out to their planet's moon and then on to the other planets in their solar system. His ship had landed indoors, the walls and floors covered in painted symbols, some of which Castiel recognized as belonging to various religions of Earth, both past and present. Others he knew the humans believed to work on creatures they thought to be of a supernatural nature, who were in reality either beings from other systems or just scientific phenomena with other explanations. There were a few symbols which he did not recognize, but as symbols held no actual power he was not concerned.

At some distance from his ship there were two tables, covered in an array of religious and supernatural relics. Standing between the two tables and approaching his ship with guns raised and cautious steps were two men, one of whom Castiel recognized as Dean Winchester. He used his time sense to see whether the other man was of importance to the task Castiel needed to accomplish, and once he was convinced that he wasn't he turned to exit his ship. He didn't want the men getting too close to it, even with the shields and other protection it had against external tampering.

He pulled the doors open slowly and stepped out, the doors swinging shut behind him with a soft click. He could see the two men in front of him tense as he started to approach with measured steps, and he knew the moment before the first one shot that they would try to harm him before he even got to speak. They both shot him several times before looking at each other in shock as he kept moving towards them. He had felt the bullets pierce his skin, of course, but once his body realized that it was under attack it dulled the sensation and got to work removing the bullets and healing the wounds. When he was a few steps away Dean Winchester moved towards one of the tables and put a knife behind his back. Castiel could feel the psychic aura radiating from it, but knew that it would do Dean Winchester no good if his aim was to kill or injure him. Ignoring the other human – Bobby Singer, his time sense informed him in the back of his mind – Castiel came to stand in front of Dean Winchester.

Dean Winchester had been watching him with a look of confusion and shock, and kept that look on his face as he asked, “Who are you?”

“I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition,” Castiel replied.

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Dean Winchester said, and he came forward and stabbed Castiel with the psychic knife, just as he knew he would. He felt nothing all the same, and not wanting it to get in the way or otherwise be a distraction to the human, Castiel raised his hand to the knife and removed it from where Dean Winchester had embedded it in his chest. After removing the knife and dropping it to the floor – to Dean Winchester's complete shock, it would appear – he felt the air move behind him and could smell the metal as Bobby Singer moved to hit him with an iron bar. He blocked the blow with his hand, the calculation for its location based on the air movement simple and done subconsciously, and didn't break eye contact with Dean Winchester until a moment later when he realized he would have to deal with the other human if he wanted to be able to speak with Dean Winchester in peace and convince him to give him his full attention. He turned around, keeping a grip on the metal bar, and raised his other hand to place two fingers near Bobby Singer's forehead, feeling at his soul and forcing it into slumber. Once the man was asleep on the ground Castiel turned back to face Dean Winchester.

“We need to talk, Dean,” he said, using only his first name in order to show familiarity and hopefully to build trust quicker. He didn't want to waste any more time than he had to, for there was no point in wasting it when there were things that needed doing. “Alone,” he added as an afterthought, aiming to explain why he had rendered Bobby Singer unconscious. Bobby Singer was not a distraction that this universe needed in order to be resolved.

“What did you do to him?” Dean asked before shoving by Castiel to bend down and check on his friend. Castiel allowed him a moment to check on him and moved to one of the tables and opened a book that was out, hoping out of curiosity to find some clue as to how these mere humans had been able to call his ship here from across and between universes.

When he saw Dean's gaze turn back towards him, Castiel said, “Your friend's alive.”

“Who are you?” Dean asked, again, Castiel noted. Apparently his previous response of having been the one to rescue him from Hell hadn't been enough, but then humans were known for questioning things to no end.

“Castiel,” he answered, continuing to look through the book. It was about the psychic markings and imprints left by beings that created items; perhaps they had been able to use Dean's body, which Castiel had created with the help of his ship, as a link to call him back. He was surprised that something like that would work across universes, especially without any augmentation technology.

“I mean what are you,” Dean said, his voice still hard and not trusting. Castiel would have to work to fix that before they could begin their task.

Castiel looked up from the book to lock eyes with Dean. Eye contact should serve to aid in building trust and conveying his message. “I'm a Soldier of the Lord of Time,” he answered, seeing no reason to lie. Dean would know nothing of his kind either way.

They held each other's gaze as Dean rose to his feet.

“I have work for you.”

“Well guess what pal, I'm not going to just do whatever you say because you're spewing some Time Soldier crap – I don't even know who you are.”

“I told you, I'm Castiel, and you need to come with me.”

“That's not happening,” Dean said with a slight shake of his head.

“Very well,” Castiel said, before stepping forward to close the gap between them. He raised his arm before Dean could retaliate and placed two fingers to Dean's forehead. He did not think to reach out and catch Dean before he fell, but he could tell that the man had not been injured so he thought no more of it. Now, however, he was faced with the task of getting Dean into his ship so that he could take him to where – and when – he needed to be.

-x-

Castiel watched Dean's sleeping form as his ship travelled, taking them back in the universe's timeline, counting the rises and falls of the man's chest. He was a deep and peaceful sleeper, it seemed, though the artificial nature of his slumber may have had influence on that fact.

He felt his ship land, and after quickly completing the landing sequence he stepped down from the control console and bent down beside Dean's sleeping form, debating over which approach to the situation he should take: he could wake Dean and explain what was happening and what needed to be done, or he could deposit Dean's sleeping form outside and see if he could accomplish his task on his own without Castiel's assistance. He reached out with his time sense, and could feel that both options would result in his task being successful, but since Dean had not seemed to be open to cooperation earlier Castiel decided to go with the second option. He decided that he would monitor the situation closely and intervene with any explanation required if need be before reaching down to move Dean.

After he had placed Dean on a bench and covered him with his jacket, Castiel retreated back into his ship to meditate and monitor the progression of events. He felt it when Dean was woken by a policeman, and was pleased when he went into the correct building without prompting. He could feel the human's shock and confusion when he realized that he was sitting beside his father, but thankfully he kept this to himself enough that his father – John Winchester, he noted – did not know what was happening, which was certainly not part of the events that needed to take place in this universe.

Dean followed his father out of the diner a short time later, and Castiel could feel his hesitancy – he was considering abandoning his father to try and figure out what was going on. This was a problem, so Castiel transported himself to where Dean was. When Dean turned the corner and saw Castiel, he started in surprise. “What is this?” he asked. Confusion, then, he wanted answers. He would only continue if he was given some understanding of the situation – hopefully now he would be more willing to listen than he had been back in his own time.

“What does it look like?” Castiel asked, deciding to figure out what Dean's interpretation of his situation was to try so as to determine how best to explain it to the man.

“Is it real?”

Castiel almost laughed inwardly. How many times had he been asked that, when creatures were thrust into situations so far beyond their normal view of their universe? “Very,” he replied, because it was. For now, until Dean completed his task. But he didn't tell Dean that, for that would definitely not be conducive to the goal.

“Okay so what you got you hands on a Delorean how did I get here?”

Castiel debated for a moment on whether to tell Dean about his ship, but he decided that doing so would raise more questions than answers. “Time is – fluid, Dean. It can be bent on occasion, when necessity calls for it.”

“So that's one of your tricks is it, bending time? Well I can tell you that I've never heard of a creature that can travel in time-”

“Now is not the time,” Castiel said, cutting him off. He knew that train of thought would not lead anywhere productive. He was unsure of what to say, so he reached out with his time sense to find the words Dean needed to hear. “Listen to me: you have to stop it.”

“Stop it stop what? Why won't you tell me what the hell I'm doing here?”

“I just did. You have to stop it,” he repeated, hoping Dean was absorbing the message, as stubborn as he seemed to be. The meaning was still unclear to him, but it was important for Dean to know his goal.

“Stop what? Huh is there something nasty after my dad?”

Ah yes, there it was, Castiel could see it now. Dean had come to the right conclusion, and as it stood he would follow the right path for the time being. A car honked on the road behind Dean, who was distracted by the sound and turned to look, clearly on edge but still in control. Castiel used the opportunity to activate a perception filter on his body instead of returning to his ship. Dean turned back and looked right through him, confusion turning to anger and annoyance. He swore before heading towards where his father had gone.

Castiel trailed after him, body on autopilot as his mind was consumed with his time sense, the events that were to take place clear and obvious now. He could see what “it” was, a creature from far back in Dean's personal timeline that was critical to its progression. With it destroyed, Dean's life would turn out very differently, bringing it in line with another existing universe just on the edge of his senses. The universe he was in now would resolve into nothing, allowing the other universe to exist without conflict.

He continued to follow Dean as the human trailed his father, going on to meet his mother and maternal grandparents. He listened as Dean investigated and then came up with a plan to deal with the “yellow-eyed demon” - who was in fact a temporary physical embodiment of detached consciousness named Azazel, but humans knew of his kind as demons so Castiel did not correct Dean. He felt Dean become uncertain shortly before he left to go get the Colt, and he saw it grow as he spoke with his mother, telling her not to get out of bed the night she dies in Dean's timeline. An unnecessary warning based on how the timeline would work out, but Dean didn't know that.

Once Dean was on his way to Daniel Elkins' house he lifted the perception filter. Dean seemed to be thinking that maybe his warning to his mother would suffice, but it would not, and he had to make sure that this was clear to Dean. The other part of Dean's plan still had to succeed.

Dean gasped and jumped slightly in his seat in surprise when he noticed Castiel's appearance. “So what you're only my copilot when you feel like it is that it?” Castiel glanced away from the road to look at Dean, and Dean did the same. “Well you're a regular chatty Cathy,” he said, watching the road again. “Tell me somethin', Sam would have wanted in on this, why not bring him back?”

“Who's Sam?” Castiel asked. He did not believe that Dean was referring to his grandfather Samuel in this case.

“He's my brother and these are his parents too, so why not bring him back to help me out a bit?”

“You had to do this alone Dean,” he answered after a moment.

“And you don't care that he's tearing up the future looking for me right now?”

“Sam isn't looking for you. That's not how it works.”

“Well then tell me how it works because I'm confused as hell!” Dean said, anger in his voice. “If I do this, then the family curse breaks right? Mom and Dad live happily ever after, Sam and I grow up playing little league and chasing tail. But if I kill the yellow-eyed demon now then me Dad and Sam will never become hunters and I won't know anything about the Colt if I get pulled back here in some time loop or whatever.”

“It's complicated,” Castiel said.

“Well I got time, so how 'bout you get explainin'?”

“The way things are now is – stressful, on the universe,” Castiel said, treading carefully, trying to make things as simple as possible so that he could get the topic back to the task at hand. “Once your job is done things will go to the way they should be. Everything will be taken care of.”

“And another thing, what'll happen to all those people that we save huh? In the future? Everything gets completely rewritten with all of them out of the picture?”

“This is what's meant to happen, and things won't be stable unless you follow through.”

“So I don't even get a choice?” Dean said, but when he glanced over Castiel had already activated the perception filter, hiding himself from Dean's sight. The conversation had gotten away from him, and he didn't want to risk revealing something that would put Dean even more at odds with what was happening than he already was.

Castiel stayed with Dean until he had acquired the Colt and was safely on his way back to Lawrence. He returned to his ship first, going into meditation to check and make sure that everything was in order and following the path necessary to ensure that the universe would resolve successfully. His time sense was stronger when he was in his ship, everything amplified and clearer to him thanks to the effects of the Eye of Harmony. Without much difficulty he was able to see that everything was in good standing, at least for the time being. He relaxed slightly, but continued to meditate and monitor all the components that were crucial to success – Dean, both his parents, and Azazel.

He brought his ship to the location of the final event that would solidify the universe's fate, a wooded area on the edge of the Kansas River. He landed out of sight in the trees, and left on foot to get closer to where everything would be happening in case he needed to intervene directly, but that did not seem like it would be likely at that point. Everything had gone well and according to path thus far. When he got there John and Mary were already there in John's car, and he just had to wait for Azazel and Dean to arrive.

Azazel arrived in Mary's father's body, just as he was supposed to. He proceeded to kill John Winchester, just as he was supposed to. Mary agreed to the deal he offered to bring John back to life, just as she was supposed to.

Then came the event that would alter the timeline of the universe for good and cause it to resolve: Dean arrived as John was being brought back to life, and before anyone noticed him, he shot Azazel. The demon was dead in moments, the energy and inherent power in the bullet shattering and dispersing his consciousness such that it could never manifest again in any form, physical or not.

Castiel smiled slightly as he felt the timeline shifting around him, aligning itself, all the pieces falling into their rightful places and settling in where they were meant to be. With the demon dead the future was completely changed, and the universe would begin to resolve in the next few minutes as the multi-verse came to recognize that two identical universes now existed. He turned away from the scene in front of him and started to make his way back to where he had left his ship. He didn't want to get caught outside of it when the universe started to resolve – not even Soldiers could survive the resolution of a universe.

The dark blue exterior of his ship soon came into view, and as he stepped inside he could feel the far edges of the universe in the furthest reaches of time resolving and melding with what was now its twin universe. He allowed the doors to swing shut silently behind him as he strode forward to stand by the controls, silently debating whether he needed to stay until the universe was fully resolved so that he didn't leave anything unfinished again. He couldn't see anything that would stop what had started, not even with the help of the Eye, and the resolution of a universe couldn't be stopped once it had started; so, he started the sequence to leave the universe and go to the next one that needed fixing.

He watched the rotor inside the column move up and down as his ship dematerialized from the resolving universe and entered the space between universes, a blank expression on his face. The events in that universe had been different, to be sure, but other than the summoning of his ship from the space between universes nothing astronomically strange had happened. It was just another in a long, endless line of universes to mend in search of universal harmony.

That was, until he heard a voice say over the sound of the dematerializing matrix working, “What the hell?”

Castiel turned around slowly, certain that he had imagined the voice out of the variable noise the matrix made. But he hadn't – there, standing just inside the doors of his ship, stood Dean Winchester, Colt still in his hand and hanging by his side, eyes wide as he looked around him in confusion, fear, and awe.

Castiel's mind raced for an explanation for his presence, before the Eye took pity on him and gave him the answer – Dean had seen him go into the trees and followed him back to the ship once he was sure that Azazel had been killed. Since Castiel hadn't locked the doors behind him (he rarely did, because if he did leave it parked in a universe instead of in the Void it was usually invisible to other creatures thanks to the perception filter), Dean had been able to walk in before it dematerialized, and had been too dumbstruck to make a sound until they had left.

But Dean was part of a universe that in the process of resolving, so he wouldn't exist here for long, several minutes at most. Like the universe he was from, he would soon cease to exist to make way for the version of himself from the twin universe, so it was just a matter of making sure he didn't damage anything before that happened. Given what he had seen of Dean and his timeline, it was a slim but still very real possibility.

“Hello Dean,” he said, figuring that the best way to keep Dean occupied would be to speak with him. Non-violent, and it would keep him away from the controls and anything that he could damage accidentally.

“What the hell?” Dean said again, still looking around as if trying to absorb everything he was seeing. Castiel supposed that, for a human from the twenty-first century, the interior of his ship could be somewhat overwhelming. “Where am I? What is this?” he asked after several moments, his eyes finally coming to rest on Castiel.

“You are in my ship,” Castiel said, half to Dean in explanation and half to himself in the disbelief at the situation that hadn't fully faded yet. He was no longer worried about divulging too much. Dean was just going to resolve anyway.

“Your ship? That blue box looked more like an outhouse than a ship to me.” He looked around, taking in the interior of the ship again. “This shouldn't be possible.”

“Many things that shouldn't be are.”

He raised his arm, bringing the Colt out in front of him and thumbing the hammer down as he aimed at Castiel. “Tell me what the hell you are. What's a Soldier of Time or whatever you called yourself? And how the hell did all this happen?”

“You should know by now that guns don't work on me,” Castiel said instead, hoping that Dean wouldn't actually fire. He didn't mind getting shot as it wouldn't injure him, but he didn't like the thought of Dean possibly missing and hitting something in the room.

“Yeah well this one's special, so get talking pal. And give me the truth.”

“I have not lied to you at any point, Dean. Just because you haven't heard of my kind doesn't make me less real or dangerous. You should show me some respect.”

“Yeah, why? You haven't done anything to deserve it. All you've done so far is knock out Bobby and then throw me back in time with barely two words of advice. I did what you wanted me to do, now take me back to the future. And I mean my future, not the alternate one where Mom's alive, I've been there already.”

“That's not possible.”

“What do you mean it's not possible? You brought me back in time, now take me forwards. Should be easier right?”

“I told you before that time isn't as simple as you think,” Castiel said, looking over his shoulder briefly to adjust some of the controls as they continued their flight. He saw Dean tense at the movement out of the corner of his eye, the Colt still trained on Castiel, but thankfully Dean didn't shoot. “Besides, we're no longer in your universe, so we cannot traverse its timeline.”

“No longer in my universe? You expect me to believe that you have a ship that can travel between universes?”

“Yes.”

Castiel did not anticipate Dean's next move, which was to take the several steps back that would bring him to the doors of the ship, and push them open with the hand that wasn't keeping the gun pointed at him.

Immediately the interior of the ship was plunged into complete darkness. Castiel kept one hand on the control panel as he walked around it, feeling for the button that would close the doors remotely. He found it after a few moments, pushing it and waiting patiently for them to close and for the light to reappear.

When it did he turned to see Dean with a shocked look on his face – not surprising, considering what had just happened. Apparently the shock was more for being able to see again, and before Castiel could blink Dean was back to looking moderately angry, eyes focused on him and the gun held fast. “The fuck just happened?”

“You thought it would be prudent to open the doors of my ship while we are between universes. You are fortunate that my ship keeps a constant air pressure inside, or you would have exploded from the pressure drop.”

“So why did the lights go out?”

“The Void between universes has many – interesting properties,” Castiel said.

Dean didn't speak for a few moments. “Okay, so I buy that this is a spaceship. Now how about you turn it around and take me back to my universe.”

“Your universe is disappearing, Dean.”

“Why? How?”

“It's difficult to explain, and more complicated than you think.”

“I'm listening.”

Castiel resigned himself to the fact that if he didn't want Dean to become trigger happy, he would have to indulge him until he disappeared, which should be any moment now regardless. “By killing the detached consc- the demon,” he said, correcting himself. “You brought your universe's timeline in line with another universe's. Because they're the same, your universe will disappear.”

“What do you mean by-”

“It will resolve and cease to exist. It's already started,” he said with an air of finality, motioning with his head and one arm towards where he knew one of the screens was displaying information about the universe's status. “It will take you along with it, momentarily.”

“Take me alo- what the hell are you talking about?” Dean said, his hold on the Colt tightening, but thankfully on the grip, not the trigger. “That doesn't make any sense.”

“I told you it was complex, but it doesn't matter now,” Castiel said calmly. “With you gone it will make way for the alternate version of you in the other universe. Things will be – stable, as I explained in the car.”

“Yeah well without this version of me and the universe I'm from the other universe's yellow-eyes won't get killed right?”

“You're over thinking it.”

“But you just said it was complicated!”

Castiel let out a breath in frustration, willing Dean to disappear. By his reckoning the universe they had just been in should be completely resolved or in the final stages now – why was Dean still standing there? “I do not expect a human to be able to understand. You lack the skills to see and comprehend these things.” Castiel was getting worried now. Had there been another problem? Had something stopped the universe's resolution? But that was impossible. Though he had told Dean that seemingly impossible things were often possible, a universe's resolution stopping partway through shouldn't be one of them.

He reached out with his time sense, feeling for the existence of the universe. It was gone; no traces remained except for the human standing several dozen feet away from him, but even then he had to struggle to feel the connection between the two. What was going on?

Castiel could see that Dean's grip on the Colt had slackened slightly, and he no longer seemed inclined to shoot at the first sign of movement – for now, anyway. He turned around, his back to Dean, and scanned the display of one of the monitors. It too was showing that the universe had resolved itself successfully with no additional complications, and that everything was normal in its twin universe as well. Dean should have disappeared over two minutes ago.

“What are you doing?” Dean asked from behind him.

“Are you sure you're human?” Castiel asked, turning his head to look at Dean over his shoulder, squinting his eyes. Then he remembered that he had built Dean's body himself, and he knew the answer. But there was another possibility. “Never mind. Do you have a pocket watch?”

“A pocket wa- no?” Dean said with a slight shake of his head to the side. “And what are you going on about of course I'm human.”

“Does the term chameleon arch mean anything to you?” Castiel asked, still watching Dean with narrow eyes as he left his place by the controls and advanced towards Dean, no longer concerned with the Colt. There could be bigger things going on here.

“No, I-” Dean said, but Castiel had advanced too fast in his haste and confusion and Dean proceeded to fire a bullet at Castiel's chest, seemingly by reflex.

With an angry sigh Castiel closed the last of the distance between them, and pulled the Colt out of Dean's hand before he had even registered that the Soldier had moved. He threw it to the ground to his right and it skidded across the floor for some distance before hitting the wall of the control room. Castiel was thankful when he saw the wall absorb the gun, rendering it unreachable until Castiel deemed it necessary.

All of a sudden Castiel found himself against the wall as well, Dean's forearm on his neck. The pressure was annoying, but his respiratory bypass allowed him to continue to breathe without difficulty. “Listen here you son of a bitch, I don't know what the hell's going on here, or where am I, or what kind of creature you are but I swear to God-”

“How did you get into the dimension pocket in the first place?” Castiel asked, not listening to Dean's speech as he continued to try and find an explanation for Dean's continued existence.

Dean increased the pressure on Castiel's neck. “Dimension pocket?”

“Where I found your soul, humans refer to it as 'Hell.' How did you get there?”

Dean's hold on Castiel's neck relaxed for a moment before it increased again. “You didn't rescue me from Hell, nothing can do that.”

“And yet you keep saying that you've never heard of my kind before. You have no idea of what I'm capable of.”

Castiel could see Dean thinking this through as he glared at him. After a few moments he spoke again. “Alright, say I believe everything you've told me. You're saying there's more than one universe?”

“Yes.”

“And they can disappear.”

“Under the right circumstances, yes.”

“And you're saying that mine is gone? Disappeared kaput?” 

“According to the monitors, and I can't feel its existence either.”

“So where do you fit into all this then? I don't see a point to a creature that can travel between universes.”

“I travel between universes and fix problems with their structure.”

“Are there more of you?”

“There – were, before. Not anymore.” He tilted his head. “It would be advisable for you to release me now, Dean. We are entering another universe, and I will need to land my ship.”

Dean stared at him with a focused gaze for another few moments before letting out a long breath and stepping back, releasing Castiel. Dean stayed standing where he was as Castiel walked past him towards the controls, beginning the landing sequence. Shortly before they touched down Dean spoke again.

“We have to go back for Sam.”

“Your universe is gone, Dean, there's nothing to go back to or for.”

“I don't believe that.”

“Sam's alternate self still exists in the twin universe, but your Sam is gone.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I can sense every universe, I can feel the flux of every timeline and imperfection in all the dimensions, I can feel the movement and existence of every being and particle in the multi-verse. I know, Dean.”

“There has to be a way.”

“There is not.” He paused, an idea coming to mind that might appease Dean. Though why appeasing the human felt necessary he wasn't sure. “Unless a pocket of your universe appears. Then it may be possible.”

“A pocket?” Dean practically spat in indignation at the phrase.

“Sometimes a small section of a universe's timeline will – come back, for a short period of time, for unknown reasons. Just a brief window. It's random and rare, but a possibility.”

“And that would be our only shot at getting Sam back?”

“Other than watch and wait, there's nothing you or I can do,” Castiel replied without looking up from the controls. After a pause he said, “You shouldn't even be around to hear this.”

“Yeah what's up with that? A few minutes ago you were saying I was going to disappear too. So what gives?”

Castiel clenched his jaw slightly before replying. “I don't know. I'm still trying to come up with a plausible explanation.”

“Well, what happens now?” Dean said, hands in the pockets of his jacket as he walked slowly up towards the controls. Castiel could tell that Dean was still wary of him; however he was no longer inclined towards aggression, which was certainly a positive development.

Castiel realized at that point what the situation was. He was stuck with a creature whose home universe was gone, a creature that shouldn't even exist anymore because said home universe had resolved. He was an anomaly, and Castiel didn't know what to do with him, what to do about the whole situation. Where could he leave him?

Apparently he had spoken out loud without knowing it – it had never been an issue before, with no one else around to hear him. “I'm staying with you until we find one of those pockets and can get Sam back,” Dean said from several steps behind him, leaving him plenty of room to move around the controls as he continued the landing sequence as they spoke. Or just not wanting to get too close. Either one, but probably the latter given his posture.

Castiel realized that he couldn't let Dean go, couldn't put him anywhere else, because which universe would he put him in? And if there was more to his continued existence, something that could end up threatening the stability of the multi-verse, then it was better that he be nearby for Castiel to deal with when the time came.

“It will be dangerous,” Castiel said, thinking of the human's mortality.

Dean shrugged. “Probably not any more dangerous than what I was already doing.”

Castiel thought of what he had seen of Dean's timeline. Fair enough. “Alright Dean,” Castiel said with a small nod, looking at a screen displaying information about their current location. “Go get dressed.”


	2. Chapter 2

_“Go get dressed.”_

“What?”

“You will need to change your clothes,” Castiel elaborated, turning to look at him from beside the controls. “Your current ones will not fit in where we are now.”

“What's wrong with them?” Dean asked, looking down at himself.

“We're on Earth, in Europe in the winter of 1869. The attire is quite different from what you're wearing,” Castiel said, looking back at the screen. “There's a wardrobe down the hallway on your left,” he said, motioning with his head to indicate the hallway he was referring to, one of three that led out of the control room.

“And what about you? Don't you need to change too? Because I don't know much about fashion in 1869 but I'm pretty sure trenchcoats weren't in.”

Castiel looked down at his clothing with a slight hint of confusion on his face. “There's nothing wrong with my clothes,” he said with a slight frown.

“You just said I would stand out with what I'm in now, so why wouldn't you huh? Your clothes look pretty modern to me.”

“There is a perception filter on my clothing that makes creatures overlook its lack of suitability to the environment. I'm fine as I am.”

“So am I seeing you differently then?”

“No, you're seeing my clothes as they truly are. It's a coincidence that you're from the time period when my clothing is deemed acceptable on Earth, so you're not affected.”

“Alright then,” Dean said. He hesitated for a moment, waiting to see if the – man? Thing? He looked human, but then so did a look of Things – would say anything else before heading towards the hallway that had been indicated to him.

He didn't know how much he could trust Castiel, but at this point Dean felt somewhat in over his head. If Castiel was telling the truth – and Dean hadn't fully decided if he was yet – then he was in a spaceship right now. But as cool as that was, Dean had also just found out that he had – again, if Castiel was telling the truth when it came to the whole alternate universe thing – lost Sam. And he wasn't just dead where a deal could bring him back. No, now the entire universe where they had lived was gone, apparently, along with the demons that had been part of the last deal.

Dean clenched his jaw as he entered the narrow hallway, the shoulders of his jacket almost brushing the walls. As he walked he could have sworn the hallway started to get wider, giving him a wider berth. He might have started to freak out a bit, but before he could he came across a door about a dozen paces in that said Wardrobe on the front and Dean pushed at it, causing it to swing open of its own accord.

It was dark inside, but as Dean moved forward to peer inwards the room lit up, bringing the interior into view. The room was huge, far larger than Dean had been expecting, not that he had been sure what to expect. The far wall was about three hundred feet away, and the ceiling extended upwards to at least twice that height. In the centre of the room was a large structure that resembled a spiral staircase, except it held more clothes than Dean had ever seen in his life. A “woah” escaped his lips as he breathed out, entering the room. He turned around with a slight jump as he heard the door close behind him, and couldn't help but keep his guard up as he walked further into the room.

When he stopped in front of the clothing that was at floor level he realized that he had no idea what people wore in Europe in the 1800's – there definitely weren't cowboys there at any rate, of that much he was certain. The thought that dammit, Sam would know crossed his mind briefly, but he shoved it to the back of his head quickly, knowing that if he thought too much about him being gone but maybe not gone but not here right now he would end up breaking something (or somethings), and he didn't think Castiel would appreciate that. Dean imagined that Castiel could throw him into space or something if he pissed the guy off, so he kept his hands in his pockets.

Just then the clothing rack started to move with a creak, twisting downwards to bring the clothing high above his head down to the floor level. It slowed to a stop about a minute later, leaving Dean with a selection of old, fancy-looking clothes to chose from in front of him. He picked a top hat off a pin and flipped it in his hands, muttering about Abraham Lincoln before putting it on his head and looking in the mirror he had noticed to his left. He made a face before taking it off and putting it back in its place, starting to shift through his other choices, humming Cold Hearted Man as he did.

Dean tried on several things, and while everything fit perfectly it wasn't all comfortable or practical. He eventually settled on dark pinstripe pants, a high-collared light-colored shirt with a tie (there were some weird scarf things as well but he had no idea how to wear them so he just stuck with a tie), a waistcoat – he added a monocle to the pocket for kicks – and a long jacket. He didn't see anywhere to get other shoes, something for which he was thankful, as he was perfectly comfortable in his boots. The pants he had chosen were loose and long enough to cover them, so he figured no one would notice.

As he looked at himself in the mirror he tried not to wonder why everything fit him perfectly, but he couldn't help but wonder how the hell everything he had tried on fit him perfectly. Because things weren't weird enough without having a fucking gigantic rack of clothing in exactly your size in some kind of alien spaceship.

On that train of thought, was Castiel an alien? It would explain why he'd never heard of “Soldiers” before. But Castiel looked human and wore human clothes, but maybe he only looked human because of a – what had he called it, a perception filter? Dean shook his head before turning around and heading out of the room, hoping and thinking that this might all be nothing more than a dream. A decent dream in the fact that he got to meet his parents and grandparents and create a better future he didn't get to live, and a shitty one in that Sam was apparently gone along with the rest of his universe. Yeah, of course, just his luck. It didn't seem to be the work of a djinn, at least.

He made his way back to the main room – the hallway was definitely wider now and all Dean could think about was the garbage compacter scene in Star Wars as he quickened his pace – where he found Castiel bent under the controls, some weird blue light shining on the exposed wires under his hand. There was a weird whirring sound as well, and at that point Dean noticed that the so-called 'ship' was otherwise completely silent. Shouldn't it at least have engines?

Dean cleared his throat, and the light Castiel was using turned off and the whirring stopped as he looked over his shoulder at Dean. “Something broken?” Dean asked, wondering if that was why everything was eerily silent. He hadn't noticed it in the wardrobe since he had been humming and trying clothes on.

Castiel stood up, his head barely clearing the edge of the control panel. “I was just fixing something that isn’t broken but wasn't working properly; it’s not important right now, it can wait. Are you ready?”

Dean shrugged in response, following Castiel to the door. Dean had a moment to wonder whether the light would go out again, if there was more to this joke, but then Castiel pulled the doors open and Dean's eyes widened.

For one thing, he could see outside, his senses not blocked like the last time the door had been opened. Outside it was night, snow forming a thin layer on the ground and continuing to fall slowly from the sky above. They appeared to have landed in a wide alley. Dean could see a wooden fence with several boxes piled against it to the left, where the alley turned around a tall building.

He followed Castiel outside, scanning the area as Castiel stepped around him to close the doors behind them. Dean glanced back when he did, and he was reminded of one of his earlier questions.

“So that's what the outside of your ship looks like?” he asked incredulously.

Castiel looked up at the small wooden blue box as if he had never seen it before. “Yes.”

“I still don't believe it,” he said, walking around to the back of it, letting his hand run along the rough worn wood. Despite the coolness of the air the surface was warm to the touch, but the contact gave him a weird, uncomfortable feeling so he removed his hand before turning back to Castiel. “The inside was freaking huge. How does that work?”

“The inside as you put it exists elsewhere in the multi-verse,” Castiel explained. “The door acts as a gateway between here and there, and the box is easier to see than an immaterial doorway.”

“So what it's like a wormhole or something? Cool.”

“No, but you may think of it that way.” Dean gave him an unimpressed look, but Castiel either didn't notice it or ignored it. “We should get to work.”

“What is 'work' exactly?” Dean asked as he fell into step beside Castiel, who had started to walk down the alley and towards one of the main roads.

Castiel frowned slightly before saying, “I'll tell you once I know.”

“Well that sure inspires confidence,” Dean said quietly, but again Castiel either didn't hear or elected to ignore the comment.

All other thoughts left Dean's mind when they reached the main road. He hadn't known what to expect, and there was much to see – men in top hats and women in dresses walking about on both sides of the street and on the road itself, horse-drawn carriages passing by between them; streetlamps and lights on the sides of the buildings lighting up the street and reflecting off the falling snow, and cut-out barrels held small fires around which people gathered to warm themselves. There were people caroling at the far end of the street. All these sounds melded together into a pleasing chorus, and the clopping of horses' hooves added to the peaceful atmosphere.

Once they were out of the alley Castiel turned left and began to walk down the street, keeping close to the buildings and dodging between people that were walking in the opposite direction. Dean followed behind him, not sure if Castiel even had a goal in mind but trying to take in everything regardless. Maybe he could see if that space-ship of his could take them over to America once they were done here so he could see a real western town – now that would be cool, not that any of this wasn't.

They had been walking for a few minutes when Castiel slowed and turned around to face Dean. “It's close but I still don't know what it is.”

Dean took careful note of everything in their surroundings, trying to figure out what was up before Castiel did – his cryptic and unclear speech was getting real old real fast. Castiel had stopped them in front of what looked like a theatre, called Taliesin Lodge. Inside the window there were several posters advertising people and performances that would be given there. “Hey Cas, what day is it today?” Dean asked, reading over some of the posters. There were lights on inside – maybe if whatever Castiel was sensing didn't come around for a while they'd have something to do to pass the time. The only play he'd ever seen had been the school play Sam had been in-

“It's December 24th 1869,” Castiel said, a frown on his face as he continued to observe the street.

Dean scanned the posters, looking to see if any of them were advertising something for tonight – Christmas Eve, of all the days in the year. He found one. “Dude, Charles Dickens is here!” he said with a grin, glancing over at Castiel. “We should totally-”

But Dean was cut off by a scream from inside the theatre. Castiel's head shot around to look at the building, and Dean raised his head at the sound. “Is that part of the job?” Dean asked. When a second scream followed the first, and before a chorus of them erupted from inside, Dean and Castiel leapt up the steps and ran into the theatre without another word.

Once inside they quickly located the main theatre room – it was easy to find, for there were people scrambling to leave, voices rising higher and higher to be heard over the voices and cries of others. They ran around and past where Dean and Castiel had come to a stop, unable to get through the exits against the flood of people trying to get out. They looked around for another entrance that wasn't blocked by people, but couldn't see any from where they were standing.

Luckily for them the flow of people stemmed briefly after a few moments, and they were able to push their way into the room. They were then able to see what had caused the audience to panic.

Swirling up from the centre of the room was a path of bright blue light hanging in the air – Castiel identified a body slumped over immobile in a seat underneath the beginning of the trail as the origin – following a shape, made of out of the same bright blue light and vaguely human-like, which was flying around near the ceiling of the room. It proceeded to dive down and fly right over the heads of some people who were in the upper level seats that hadn't been able to escape the room yet, prompting yet another series of screams. After this it flew towards the stage and passed right through the curtains.

Dean pushed his way through the few people that were still inside and ran down the aisle, leaping onto the stage and ducking behind the curtain to follow the thing's path, wondering as he did so what it was and wishing he had a gun and some rock salt. How he would deal with the thing he didn't yet know, but that didn't stop him from chasing after it. He passed through the curtain just in time to find the end of the trail and see it fly into one of the lights on the wall – now that Dean looked closer he could see that the lights were in fact flames – and be absorbed into it before all sign of it disappeared, trail included.

“The hell?” Dean said under his breath, eyes not leaving the place where the thing had disappeared. He'd never seen a ghost escape into a lighting fixture before.

“You there, who are you?” a voice said from Dean's left. He lowered his eyes from the lamp to look at who had spoken.

Meanwhile Castiel had been trying to make his way to the body that was at the source of the blue trail to inspect it. A stream of people had chosen that time to finally make their way down from their upper level seats, and the added rush of people trying to get out the door that Castiel was in front of caused him to stall and not be able to move away from them for several moments. By the time he was clear of the group of people and had a clear view of the room again he saw that the body was no longer in the seat where it had been before. He scanned the room and saw several people leaving through a door on the side of the room, carrying the body of a woman.

Castiel had lost track of Dean when he ran off just before Castiel had been caught in the crowd, and he called for him as he made his way to the now shut door that he had seen the people exiting out of. He saw Dean's face appear from behind the curtain, and their eyes met. Castiel motioned for Dean to follow him, and he opened the door and peered out of it as he waited for Dean to make his way to his side. It led to a narrow corridor, the door at the end being held open as two women carried the body Castiel was after. He couldn't risk getting separated from Dean, but he saw them turn right before the person holding the door – a male – let it swing shut behind them.

He heard fast footsteps approaching him and looked back inside the room to see Dean slow to a stop at his side. Castiel then proceeded through the door and down the hallway, pushing the door at the end open and looking down the alley it led into in both directions in case the group had changed course after the door had closed. He couldn't see them, so Castiel reached out with his time sense and searched for their location – they had returned to the main road, down the alley on the right, and left from there. He hurried through the alley, Dean following beside him.

The street outside the theatre was full with not just the normal traffic from before but also with the audience from inside the theatre, who appeared to be waiting for an announcement about whether or not the show they had been seeing would be resuming. Castiel looked up and down the street in case he had misinterpreted what he had sensed, but he couldn't see anyone carrying a body, and he hadn't gotten a good look at the faces of any of the members of the party. He saw Dean doing the same from the corner of his eye, though he didn't know what Castiel was looking for. Castiel quickly resigned himself to using his time sense again to figure out who they were.

By the time Castiel had figured out that they were the people climbing into the stopped carriage nearby it had already started to move, the horses pulling it away quickly and making their way down the street.

“Cas what's up, what are we looking for?” Dean asked from beside him. Dean had thought that Cas had seen a sign of the blue ghost and had been chasing after it, but if the ghost had been here then the people on the street would surely have started to panic again, so that couldn't have been it.

“There was a woman at the source of the light.” Oh, he thought, picking up a blast from his time sense. He frowned. “She was dead, and had been for quite some time.”

“How'd they get in there then? And why didn't anyone notice? You'd think people would notice a dead body sitting beside them.”

“I don't know. It's not clear, I can't sense anything about whatever's causing all this.” His frowned deepened as he looked down the street one last time before turning to Dean. “We need a plan. Time is limited.”

“What do you mean time's limited? You know what never mind. How 'bout we ask around, see if anyone noticed anything? Then we might be able to figure something out.”

Castiel nodded after a moment, to which Dean smiled. This was something familiar to him – asking questions to get a lead on a case. He was about to look around and find someone who looked particularly shaken up (more likely to have seen more than everyone else), but then a thought occurred to him. “Say, do they have an FBI sort of thing here? Or something we could use for cover?”

“No, but saying we're the police should suffice,” Castiel replied. Dean shrugged before turning to the crowd.

It became clear to Dean within minutes that he would have to do all the talking if they wanted to find out anything. Castiel's methods weren't exactly...persuasive and had left one woman in tears. Luckily Dean had been able to smooth the situation over before anyone else raised their voices (maybe he should have clarified with Castiel that it was generally best to not draw attention to oneself when investigating – he didn't seem to be all that experienced at it), but after that Castiel stood silently beside Dean as Dean asked members of the audience questions, staring almost unblinkingly at whoever they were interrogating – which did admittedly unsettle a lot of them, but it was better than the alternative, so Dean said nothing about it.

Just as the audience was being called back into the theatre for the continuation of Dickens' performance Dean and Castiel managed to get some answers from a young lady with an extravagant hat who had been seated beside the dead woman. She said that the old woman had seemed fine, though had been very pale and hadn't engaged in conversation when the lady had commented on the carolers that had been outside the theatre, only grunting in response to further prompting. The lady had noted that the woman had been wearing black mourner's clothes, so she hadn't said anything further. What had caused the screaming and panic, she said, was that the woman's face had started to glow blue. She herself hadn't noticed until Dickens had pointed it out with a trembling finger and a scared expression, at which point the woman had stood up and her face had started to glow even brighter. Having been caught leaning over in her seat and unable to stand immediately the lady had seen the blue 'devil's tail' (at the mention of which she crossed herself) come out from her mouth. Her friend had then helped her up and they had run to the doors, and when she had turned to look back one last time she saw the woman slumped over in her seat, which would have been when Dean and Castiel had entered the room.

As they walked away from the audience crowding in to reenter the theatre Dean's mind was racing, ticking off the hints the lady had given and trying to match them to anything he had encountered before. “Alright so I think it's pretty clear here that we're dealing with something possessing or reanimating a dead body, so it could be demonic possession, a zombie, or some loonies messing around with necromancy. None of that explains the blue stuff though, so maybe there's a ghost or spirit involved. We should look for a morgue or something and see if they've had any old hags recently, and then maybe we can find out who the woman was and where she was buried.”

Castiel had been staring at him, and when Dean stopped talking he nodded. “That is – very smart Dean,” he said, not sure if the idea would have occurred to him, but it seemed like an excellent next step. As Dean had been speaking he had been comparing what he knew of each thing Dean named with what they had heard and seen, impressed with the ones he named and how he had left no fact unaddressed. None matched up perfectly, but he couldn't think of anything that Dean hadn't named that could explain the events, so it seemed more likely that it was an extraterrestrial creature that neither of them were aware of rather than the work of more than one. Regardless, if there were dead bodies involved it made sense to find their source, as that alone would lend some clue to what was happening. He looked around. “This way,” he said before starting to walk down the street.

“What how do you know, shouldn't we ask someone first?”

“That's not necessary, I know where it is.”

“How? What -?”

“Just follow me,” Castiel ordered as he turned around to face Dean, who hadn't moved. They glared at each other for a brief moment before Dean exhaled sharply and moved to follow Castiel, who resumed walking.

After a few minutes Dean recognized where they were: they had arrived back by the alley down which Castiel's ship sat, now with a thin layer of snow on its roof. He stopped, and when Castiel noticed he stopped as well and turned to look at Dean. “Do you have any salt on that ship of yours? Any guns? Iron?” Dean asked.

Castiel inclined his head slightly to the side as he looked over at Dean, a confused frown on his face as he looked at Dean with narrowed eyes. “Why would you need any of that?”

“Because that thing was pretty clearly a ghost or something and if we're going to go investigating we need to be able to fight back if it attacks us!” Dean replied, gesturing widely with his hands as he spoke.

“That was not a ghost, Dean,” Castiel replied. “Salt won't work on these creatures.” He looked back down at Dean before continuing to walk in the direction they had been heading. Dean followed after a moment, muttering a quiet curse as he did.

“Alright then what was it, some kind of spirit or something? Because I don't know what else could explain the blue stuff. Maybe we should stop by a library, see if we can find some info-”

“They're aliens, they're nothing you would have encountered before,” Castiel said. He could sense some presences+ now. The fact that he could sense them meant that they weren't from Earth, but he couldn't get anything more than their location and the fact that they existed.

“Wait did you say 'they?' There's more than one of these things?”

“Yes, I can sense multiple presences. You were correct in saying we should look where there are dead bodies, they're in a funeral home. It's not far.”

“So what do we need to gank these things, since you seem to know everything,” Dean asked as he looked around. “Some silver maybe? If it's like a zombie we'll need a stake, and to find the grave-”

“Nothing on Earth will 'gank' them.”

“How can you be sure? And how do you even know all this, you psychic or somethin'?”

Castiel leveled his gaze on Dean, eyes boring into his. “Do not doubt me. This may be your home planet but I am in charge. I receive guidance from the Lord, and you will not question me.”

“The Lord, what like God? You expect me to believe that?”

“I expect you to do as I say if you want to survive. The multi-verse isn't a kind place, Dean.”

“You're telling me,” Dean said, looking away from Castiel.

They walked in silence for about ten minutes before Castiel spoke again. “They're in there,” he said, nodding towards a building at the end of the empty street they were walking down.

Dean had noticed a sign at the other end of the street when they turned down it – Sneed & Company Undertakers – and said, “Alright so if someone's playing around with necromancy they'd have access to a ton of dead bodies-”

“Stop trying to explain what's happening with phenomena you don't understand,” Castiel cut him off when they stopped in front of the door. “We're dealing with aliens. Do as I say and this should be over quickly.”

“Sorry Cas but aliens? Really?” Dean said with a heavy edge of skepticism.

“Yes, really,” Castiel replied with a straight face, clearly not realizing that he was coming across as vaguely snarky. Dean shot him a glare and was about to retort, but he had turned away to pound on the door several times with the knocker. Dean had been almost enjoying himself, but Castiel being a condescending dick was dampening his mood considerably.

Now that they had stopped moving and were no longer crunching snow under their feet they could hear voices coming from inside the door. Then there was a shuffle and a scream, and Castiel bent down so that his face was almost level with the lock on the door and whisked what looked like a small silver flashlight out of his pocket. He pointed it at the lock, and Dean saw it light up with a blue light and heard the same whirring sound that he'd heard when Castiel had been working on his ship. After a beat he heard a click as well as the door unlocked, and then Castiel was pushing the door open and stepping inside.

The scene that greeted them surprised them both. A few feet from the door was a woman, her neck held under the forearm of a taller man behind her. The man's skin was deathly pale, his eyes blank and empty, blue lips expressionless as he choked the woman. Some distance behind them down the hallway was another woman, who was fighting off an advancing old woman who looked as dead as the man choking the first.

Dean and Castiel moved forward at the same time, Castiel going for the closest creature and Dean going over to the one further down the hall. Castiel reached above the head of the woman and placed two fingers to the forehead of the man choking her; he released her, arms now limp, and crumpled to the floor. Meanwhile Dean had put himself between the old woman and the younger one, tackling her to the ground and restraining her. Castiel took the several steps it took to reach them and bent down to place his fingers to the woman's forehead, and she stilled as well.

Castiel straightened as Dean lifted himself off the woman and stood up. Before Dean could say anything Castiel was already walking down the hallway and through one of the doors and Dean followed after him, forgetting for the moment about the two women they had just saved. The first thing he noticed when he entered the posh parlour was a table, symbols drawn on it in white chalk and covered with several bowls of herbs. It was in front of this table that Castiel now stood.

Out of nowhere appeared blue smoke similar to what they had seen in the theatre, and it seemed to form the shape of several human-like outlines.

“We are the Gelth,” came a voice from the form of the creatures, but none of their mouths moved. “Please, help us.”

Dean felt somewhat lost during their dealings with the Gelth – they definitely weren't ghosts, or spirits, and zombies were out of the question at this point, so he didn't really know what to do with no background knowledge. Castiel seemed to have suddenly become an expert on the things, however, talking to them about their homeworld (okay, real, actual aliens) as if he had been there before (and who knew, maybe he had, Dean knew next to nothing about the guy, and man had his life become fucked up in the last day).

Castiel managed to get the Gelth to back down and promise to not possess any bodies for the moment, to give them time to do something Dean hadn't quite understood, something to do with a rift and energy actualization and dimensional flexibility and dissolution. Once all the Gelth had returned to the gas lines Castiel turned to face all of them (the two women had followed them into the room), his face blank.

The women said that they had been trying to practice necromancy on the bodies in the morgue while their master was away, hoping to be able to bring back one of their husbands (who was currently terminally ill). Thinking they were succeeding when the bodies were animating for short periods of time they had kept going, hoping to discover how to prolong the effects, keeping and using any bodies that didn't require funerals for practice. They'd been unprepared for the woman to fight back and run away, but had managed to reanimate her grandson, who had died of the same illness. They'd thought themselves successful when he'd stayed animated and had been able to help them retrieve his grandmother, so they'd tried to reanimate her with the other ritual when they got back in. Once she was back the two had attacked them, however, which was when Dean and Castiel had arrived. While Castiel continued to question them Dean searched the house, and found the book they had been using for their “necromancy” - it was full of bullshit spells, nothing that could actually raise the dead.

When Dean went back to report his findings he found them all gathered down in the morgue. Castiel was in a narrow passage messing with some of the pipes, but refused Dean's help when he offered it after informing Castiel of what he had found in the book.

Once Castiel was done fiddling he emerged back into the main area where the rest of them were waiting. Castiel told the women quietly to go upstairs and open all the gas lines fully and then to get of the building as fast as they could. Once they had gone upstairs he turned to Dean and said, “Make sure they get out safely. I'll meet you outside.”

“Wait what are you gonna do you can't stay down here, the gas will choke you!”

“That is not a concern, I don't need to breath as humans do,” Castiel replied. “I will need a lighter or matches.”

“I have a lighter,” Dean said, pulling one out of his pocket. As he reached forward to hand it to Castiel he realized what Castiel's plan was, and pulled his hand back. “Dude you're not gonna- Will that even destroy them?”

“I'll be fine,” Castiel assured him, but he didn't know how to make Dean believe him. Dean relented after a moment and handed him the lighter. “And they will be destroyed as the flame eats the gas, which is – supporting them, keeping them alive. But you need to get out quickly. They'll realize what I'm planning and may try to stop me.”

Dean was about to turn away towards the stairs, but then he said, “You better not die, I can't fly your ship and I don't want to be stuck here forever.”

“I won't.”

Their gazes held for another moment before Dean turned away and jogged up the stairs, leaving Castiel alone in the morgue.

When he got up the stairs the women were just coming down from upstairs and they ran down the hall and out the front door. Knowing what Castiel was planning Dean made them stand far away from the building. Just as Dean turned around to look back the building shot up in flames.

“It's done.”

Dean couldn't help but jump as his head spun around in the direction of Castiel's voice behind him. “Christ Cas, how'd you get up here so fast?”

Castiel shook his head. “That is not of import,” he said before facing the two women, who were still staring up at the flaming building in shock. “Do not tamper with things you do not understand,” he said when they looked at him, and they nodded, eyes wide, speechless. Apparently satisfied Castiel turned around and started to walk down the street towards the main road, and after one last look at the flaming building Dean jogged after him to catch up.

Once they were outside the ship Dean spoke. “Don't people notice that there's a random blue box where there wasn't one before?” he asked, stopping a few steps back from the doors and surveying the exterior of the ship. “It's not like it's inconspicuous or anything.”

“It has defenses,” Castiel said, pushing open the doors. “One of which is a perception filter. Their eyes skip over it and they don't notice it.”

“Geez Cas you got one of those on everything? Are there some invisible things I don't know about?” he said, following Castiel through the door.

Castiel shut the doors behind them then proceeded up to the controls. “I have wings,” he said as he walked.

“What no way,” Dean said with a slight laugh. But it was quelled by the appearance of two huge black wings that spanned the width of the control room. When Dean blinked they disappeared. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “Where'd they go?” he asked at normal volume, walking up behind Castiel, loosening his tie and unbuttoning the top of his shirt as he walked. He was suddenly conscious of where he stood and walked, wondering if he should bend down to walk under where he had seen the wings so as not to walk through them.

“They exist in another dimension. They are cumbersome, otherwise.”

“Oh,” Dean said, not sure what else to say to that. “You know,” Dean said after a moment. “That wasn't that bad. I mean it's not that different from what I was doing before right saving people? It's what I do. Is it usually like this?”

Castiel thought about it briefly. “Yes, for the most part. But they're not always people, I'm not always on Earth. But you did well, Dean.”

He remained silent for some time, watching Castiel work the controls. “Man I'm starving, you got any food?”

Castiel had forgotten that most creatures needed to eat to survive, and realized that it must have been quite some time since Dean's last meal. “No, I – we'll have to get some.”

“You have a giant spaceship and you're telling me it doesn't have a kitchen?”

“A kitchen isn't a problem,” Castiel said, because his ship could create any type of room that they needed. “But food is not something I need to survive, so I don't have any on board.”

They ended up going to the future for grocery shopping, so that Castiel could use his flashlight thingy to trick the digital systems into thinking they had money. “It's a sonic screwdriver,” Castiel had explained when Dean had asked if it was a lightsaber too, but Dean didn't understand why it was called that or how it worked.

Unpacking had been a strange experience – Castiel's knowledge of Earth food was abysmal at best, and the confused looks he had given some of the items they had bought had been kind of funny. By the time they were done and Castiel asked if they had everything Dean would need Dean had decided that there was only one thing missing.

“We still need pie dude,” he replied as if it was the most obvious oversight in the universe. Castiel now understood what Dean had circled the store three times searching for. “You need to take us to another store. Or actually there's this place-” and then his whole face brightened as he had another idea. “Is there a planet of pie somewhere in the universe?”

Castiel had to think for several moments, reaching out with his time sense to see if there was – he had never come across one before, and he wasn't sure whether or not pie was a human specialty or not. But apparently Dean was in luck. “There's a bakery planet, three hundred and sixteen thousand and seventy two years in the future. It's small but it's dedicated to Earth foods. It's the closest thing I can find,” Castiel answered, not sure why Dean seemed so excited about the prospect of a planet devoted to a certain food, but his mood had been somewhat somber during their shopping and unpacking and it made Castiel uncomfortable for some reason he couldn't glean.

Which was probably also part of what was bothering him: ever since Dean had come on board and declared that he would travel with Castiel until they came upon a pocket of his universe (something Dean was definitely overly optimistic about, but Castiel wasn't planning on correcting him any time soon) his time sense had been shot. He had still been able to get basic information and directions, but normally he would have been able to find out an alien's identity and how to deal with them before even leaving his ship – instead it had taken direct contact with the Gelth before that was possible.

The only explanation he could come up with was that Dean accompanying Castiel made it such that he was no longer sensing and accounting for only his own actions. There was now a second multi-versal traveller, a second disturbance to the universes' natural flow, another being whose actions had to be accounted for. Perhaps it was too much for the Eye of Harmony to handle; if Soldiers had travelled with anyone else it had always been with other Soldiers, and they would have travelled in a single ship with a single shared connection to the Lord that could govern both their actions. Dean wasn't a Solider and lacked that link, and therefore direction from the Lord, so his actions were an unpredictable variable in a universe whose course was known.

Castiel pondered this while they were on the food planet, testing what he could and couldn't sense – he found that he could get basic information about the planet and the inhabitants they encountered and anything relevant to their interactions (though Castiel had still managed to mess up the handshake that went along with the purchasing of goods). He could also get the directions to anywhere Dean needed to go once the human made his desire known to Castiel. What he couldn't sense was what he was supposed to say or anything about other people's reactions and feelings (which would explain the difficulty he had had in questioning people outside of the theatre – he usually relied quite heavily on that). Being that they were interacting with a stable aspect of the universe's existence he couldn't test his situational awareness, his sense of what might need fixing, so he decided he'd have to use extra caution in the next universe until he knew the limits of his new condition.

After quite some time – and a large number of taste tests and pies later – they returned to Castiel's ship, pie boxes bound for the kitchen piled in both their arms. As they were storing the pies Dean said, “Hey, you got a boss to report to or anything or you think we could take a side trip?”

Castiel looked over from where he was unpacking some of the pies. “Where? Why?”

“To the wild west maybe? And I dunno man I just love the west you know? Cowboys!” Dean said with a grin, straightening from his bent position from pushing pies into the fridge and looking over at Castiel hopefully. “So?”

After a moment Castiel shook his head. “The state of the 'wild west' is – sensitive, here, our presence could put this universe at risk. But we should be able to find another universe where it's in better condition and visit it there,” he said.

“Awesome,” Dean said around a forkful of pie.


	3. Chapter 3

“Dude I don't know why you didn't dress up, this is awesome.”

Castiel stepped over a pile of dung in his path. “It's not necessary. Besides, that clothing looks cumbersome.”

Dean tried to roll his shoulders, the movement slightly hindered. “Maybe yeah, but it's still awesome,” he replied, grinning as he looked around. They were walking down a street in a medieval town, the morning sun rising at their backs and illuminating the street beautifully and accenting the colors of the buildings. They were heading towards the castle, their way slow going through the narrow, busy street. Even though the place smelt like crap – literally – Dean couldn't help but love it as he fingered the hilt of the sword at his belt.

Back on the ship Cas had explained the situation while Dean was putting on his armour. There was a death they needed to prevent, that of a participant in a contest being held by the Queen. The contest explained why the streets were so full, Dean thought as he observed other men in armour that were heading in the same direction as him and Cas. As they got closer to the castle the sight of armored men became even more frequent, some leading horses through the throngs of people trying to enter the inner curtain.

Once inside Dean and Castiel found themselves at the edge of a courtyard, packed with people, all looking up at a fancifully dressed man who was addressing the crowd from a balcony overlooking the crowd.

“And whomever returns with the Beast's head will be pronounced the victor, and there will be a feast in his honor. In the Queen's name, I pronounce the game begun!”

The sound of several trumpet-like instruments filled the air in courtyard, easily drowning out the voices that had begun at the end of the man's speech. People were moving again, now trying to get out of the courtyard, which was difficult as the only entrance that didn't lead into the castle was a fairly narrow archway through which Dean and Castiel had just come; Castiel pulled Dean to the wall beside it and out of the way of the oncoming crowd.

“So who is it exactly that we're looking for?” Dean asked as he watched Castiel scanning the crowd, his eyes slightly squinted despite the fact that the sun wasn't in his eyes.

“That's her,” Castiel said in Dean's ear so as not to be overheard.

“Who?” Dean asked as Castiel started to push his way through the crowd, giving no mind to anyone in his path – not that anyone else seemed to be doing so.

Castiel didn't reply, but a few moments later Dean caught sight of a red-haired woman some distance ahead of them, and being that she was the only woman he had seen in this crowd yet he assumed that she was whom Castiel had been referring to.

This was confirmed as they continued to follow her through the streets once they were out of the castle walls.

“So we just gonna follow her until we gotta save her ass?” Dean asked, and Castiel only nodded as they hurried after her.

They finally managed to catch up with her a few streets down, her movements swift as she dodged between and around the other people filling the streets of the town.

“Charlie,” Castiel said from behind her when they were as good as stopped by the packed street.

She jumped, her head snapping around to look at Castiel with wide eyes. “Who-”

“Dean and I will be accompanying you,” he said as if Charlie hadn't tried to speak, looking at her with a look that Dean remembered from when Cas had tried to tell him that he had work for him.

“You and Dean what-” she said, her eyes landing on Dean before going back to Castiel. “I don't care if you're not from the castle, I don't need guards.”

“We are not guards,” Castiel said.

“Then who are you guys? You know what I don't want to know-”

“We're ahh, we just want to help,” Dean interjected.

“Why?” Charlie asked suspiciously.

“We were sent by God,” Castiel said.

“Oh,” Charlie said, and Dean couldn't tell if she was surprised, awed, indifferent, or something else entirely. She seemed to get over whatever it was quickly and resumed her path down the street, the foot traffic moving again. She stuck beside them, though, and didn't try to get away.

“So Charlie why are you in the contest? Cas and I missed the first part of that dude's speech, so I'm a little lost.” And Castiel wasn't being any help, remaining silent as they walked alongside Charlie.

“Well it was the only way to get out of my castle.”

“Your castle?”

“I'm the princess.”

Dean glanced over at Castiel before turning back to Charlie. “So you entered this giant contest thing is just so that you can-”

“So that I could get out and look for the Questing Beast myself. Smart huh?”

“But wait why?” he asked, furrowing his eyebrows and jerking his head back slightly in confusion.

Charlie looked back at him suspiciously. “You don't know the legend? They say the Beast has power over life and death. Its venom can be used to cure any illness.”

Dean remembered reading something about a beast like that while researching another case. “Okay so? Are you sick or something?”

Charlie's suspicion grew noticeably. “You do know the Queen's sick, right?”

“Wait isn't she the one hosting this whole thing? The guy back there said 'in the Queen's name' or something.”

“Well yeah officially, it's her kingdom, but she wasn't the one to suggest or organize it, that was me. She's in a charmed sleep.”

Dean looked over at Castiel for an answer, but got none as Castiel continued to study Charlie with a searching gaze.

“So wait if you're the princess why didn't you do the officiating back at the castle? Isn't that what royal people do?”

“I pretended I was sick so that I could sneak out, duh. One of my mom's advisers did it instead.”

“Fair enough,” Dean said with a slight tilt of his head. “Alright so how are we gonna find this thing? You called it a 'Questing Beast?'”

“Yeah that's it, and it was seen last night on one of the farmer's fields outside of town. There are woods near there where it's probably hiding. But if you're going to come with me then you're gonna have to ditch the suit,” she said, looking at Dean. “You're going to need mobility against this thing, not protection. If it gets a hit in, you're dead with or without armour.” Dean's face fell in disappointment.

-x-

They weren't the only ones who wanted to get out of the city limits, and the road leading to the entrance of the outer curtain was busy with the visiting warriors and their horses all trying to get out and get searching. The going was slow, which seemed to have Charlie worried.

“Is there another exit?” Dean leaned down slightly to ask her.

“Nope that's the only one, it's easier to only have one to defend in case of attack.”

“Right. Cas can you sense anything? A way to get out of here quicker?”

Castiel shook his head. “There isn't, we have to wait. It shouldn't be much longer, once those with horses get through it should go faster.”

He was right, and within ten minutes they were clear of the town walls and on one of the roads leading away from it. Charlie led the way, her stride quick but confident as she led them towards the flat plains of the nearby farms. When Dean looked back he saw that most people were heading to the woods that were just outside of the walls, and some of the warriors on horses were heading to the shore on the far side to cut around the trees.

“Why's everyone heading into that forest? Doesn't anyone else know about the farmer?”

“I may have started a rumor saying that it was spotted in Harlindon Woods just this morning.”

The group was silent after that as they trekked by field after field. When Dean asked if she was sure she knew the way she snapped at him, saying she knew her way around her mother's kingdom, thank you very much. Other than that she didn't seem to acknowledge their presence, which didn't really bother Dean or Castiel.

At around noon they were able to see the edge of the forest, and they arrived at its edge a short while later. The forest was dark, the trees thick, ground overgrown with moss and dead leaves undisturbed since fall.

“In there?” Dean said.

“Yeah,” Charlie breathed. “This is going to be awesome,” she said with a grin.

“Have you ever been out of that castle of yours?” Dean asked as he and Castiel followed Charlie along the edge as she searched for the path.

“It's not my castle it's my mom's, and of course I have, we travel around for state visits. But that's on horseback with an honor guard, and we stick to the roads.” They found the path and started into the forest. “And we only hunt by the sea, since there's more game in the woods by the coast.”

Dean noticed the sword at her waist and bow and arrow slung across her back. She may be a princess, but it looked as if she knew what she was doing.

A short distance into the forest they came across an obvious but unmarked fork in the path. As Charlie's head turned to look down each one Dean saw the hesitation in her expression. 

“How exactly do you plan to find this thing?” he questioned, wondering if a plan would even be useful and starting to doubt his earlier conclusion about her knowing what she was doing.

“I hadn't really planned that far ahead,” Charlie said as she looked down both paths, crossing her arms. “I was more worried about not being able to make it out of the castle. Actually finding the Questing Beast seemed like more of an...afterthought.”

“Great. You getting anything Cas?” Dean asked, looking over at him. He'd learned over the past few days that Castiel usually knew where things were and where they should go next.

“We should go right,” Castiel said, looking down that path.

“How do you know?” Charlie asked, turning around to look at them.

“Angelic guidance,” Dean replied quickly with a wave of his hand, keeping up with Castiel's earlier cover. “Now let's roll.”

They followed the path for some time, and while there were many twists and turns and Dean wondered absently if they'd end up going in a circle, the path didn't branch off into another others, so at least they were sure to be able to find their way back out. The path was clearly not often used, tress strewn across it and unbroken branches skimming close to their faces (and sometimes into their faces, much to Dean's annoyance – Charlie was short enough to not have to worry about most of them, and Castiel seemed unfazed by them).

They came across a river at one point, running smoothly at the bottom of a steep twenty foot drop into a ravine several meters wide. Luckily for them there was a narrow and (moderately) stable looking wooden bridge that hung over the ravine.

When they were about halfway across the bridge Charlie held up one of her hands, signaling for them to stop. She was squinting into the trees to their left on the other side of the ravine. Dean wished for a moment that she would turn around so that he could signal to her and ask if she had seen something, the beast maybe, but then realized that she likely wouldn't use the same signals that Dean, Sam, and their father had developed and used. Dean felt a pang in his chest.

Dean saw Cas looking in the same direction as Charlie, but he couldn't see anything himself. Charlie started to walk again, crossing the bridge with quick, silent paces, Dean and Castiel following behind her. Once on the other side she moved away from the bridge, sidestepping so that she was continued to face into the forest as she walked along the narrow space between the trees and the edge of the ravine. Dean went to follow after her but Castiel stopped him, and Dean remembered what Cas had told him back on the ship before they had left: he had to stay back and not interfere until Castiel told him to do otherwise, something to do with the events progressing properly and only interfering exactly as required. Dean watched her from where he stood with Castiel. She'd only taken a few steps, and was reaching up with one arm to pull her bow off of her back, when Dean saw it.

The top of its serpent head had a good several feet on him and Cas; at the other end of its short and hooded neck was a body that looked somewhat like a cheetah or a leopard. The legs weren't, though: the hind ones were much too large, the skin having a different pattern and coloring, and the front ones were scaled and colored similarly to the head and neck. As he watched it walk Dean could see that its front feet were composed of long, scaled fingers, while its hind ones were hoofed.

Charlie had nocked an arrow and was aiming it at the beast, body still and poised, eyes narrowed as she watched the beast's lazy movement as it walked unknowingly between the trees.

She didn't twitch when the beast abruptly turned its head and started to charge through the trees towards her, readjuting her aim instantly and firing her arrow at its head, missing its right eye by only a few inches. The beast didn't react to the hit, continuing in its path. When Charlie saw this she sidestepped out of the beast's way, away from the edge of the ravine and into the trees, reaching over her shoulder for another arrow from her quiver. The beast slowed to a stop and turned so that it was facing where Charlie was now, its back to the bridge. It opened its mouth and let out what sounded exactly like a dog bark, the sound echoing several times back through the woods.

“It barks?” Dean asked in surprised disbelief, glancing over at Castiel, who hadn't moved since Dean had stopped at the edge of the bridge and was still watching Charlie unblinkingly.

“What did you expect, it is called the Questing Beast,” Charlie called over, holding off the beast as it advanced towards her. Dean could see that she had managed to embed an arrow in one of the beast's shoulders, but it didn't seem to be much affected as it continued to stalk slowly forward towards Charlie's retreating form.

“I believe it's a pun,” Castiel said. Then the next moment he was gone.

Everything happened quickly. Dean saw the beast tense its muscles, pulling back as if it were about to leap. Charlie seemed to see it as well, dropping her bow and putting her hand on her sword hilt, gripping it and starting to pull it out of its sheath. She wouldn't have gotten it out in time, as the beast leaped forward before she'd pulled it halfway out.

There had been probably about two dozen feet between Charlie and the beast before it jumped. It stopped short at half that distance, however, as if it had hit an invisible wall. Dean couldn't see any trees in its path, so he didn't know what had stopped it. Then Dean heard a voice call, “Hey, assbutt!” from further to his left, and Dean saw that Castiel was now standing between the beast and the river on the ground clear of trees. He was watching the beast carefully, but he didn't show any signs of aggression or plan or defense or anything – he was just standing there. Dean wondered how he had gotten over there so fast, but then the beast started to charge in Castiel's direction, Charlie standing with her mouth slightly open in confusion, sword now held out in front of her.

Before the beast reached Castiel it reared back, putting its front claws around two trees and leaning forward with a howl, it's mouth wide. Castiel was looking up at with a slight frown and head tilt, but looked otherwise unconcerned. Dean was, though, seeing that Castiel was only a few feet from the edge of the ravine. The drop wouldn't kill him – probably, so long as the river was deep and there were no protruding rocks – but Dean still didn't like the look of it. So at the thought of Screw it, he pulled his gun out from under his clothes, took aim quickly and fired at the beast's head.

It raised its head to the sky, crying out in pain and rage, the pitch of its cry high. Dean fired several more shots, and after a moment of tense silence (the beast's cries having died out after the third hit), it swayed and fell to the ground with a loud thud, dead.

“Umm,” Dean said as Castiel walked up beside him.

Charlie was walking through the trees towards them, but Castiel motioned with his arm stiffly as if presenting the beast to her. “It's your kill.” Once Charlie was at the beast's body's side and out of earshot, Castiel said, “You shouldn't have done that, Dean.”

“Yeah well it didn't look like you were in any position to handle it, so...”

“I had a plan that would not have required the use of your firearm,” Castiel said, and Dean could hear the distaste in Castiel's voice at the word 'firearm.' One thing Dean had learned about Castiel in the past few days was that he had a strong dislike for guns and other weapons – not that that stopped Dean from insisting on carrying one. When Castiel had realized this he had shown Dean his ship's weapon room, which had become one of Dean favorite rooms in the ship.

“Okay well sorry I didn't know because it didn't look like it, next time I'll let the thing bite your head off.” He took a breath, and decided to change the subject. “So can we leave now since Charlie's been saved?”

“No, her life is still in danger, there's another threat. We have to stay.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Charlie walking up to them, a vial in her hand that was filled with a dark brown liquid. “Ready to go guys?”

“Aren't you going to bring back the head?” Dean asked, looking back over her shoulder at the intact body of the beast.

“Nah I don't care about that,” she said with a wave of her empty hand before lowering it to the pack on her belt, opening it to place the vial safely inside. “I just had that part added in case someone somehow managed to beat me to it, because I had to make sure to get the venom. I didn't want to have to attend a feast anyway.”

They'd crossed back over the bridge and were heading back down the path the way they'd come when Castiel spoke. “Charlie, you do realize that the venom only saves a life at the cost of another. If you give it to your mother, you will die,” Castiel said, keeping his eyes on the path ahead of them.

“Okay well that's fine, at least she'll live! I've been nothing but a screw-up since I got control of the kingdom. She'd be better off finding someone else to rule it, I'm no good at it.”

“Hey now hold on a sec Charlie-”

But at that moment Dean noticed movement in the woods to their right. The area off the path was dark from the setting sun close to the tree line, but Dean could make out the silhouette of a person, bow up and arrow drawn.

Aimed at Charlie.

Dean barely had to think before he put himself between Charlie and the archer just as the arrow was shot.

Dean registered immense pain before he started to find it difficult to breathe. He looked down at the arrow stuck in his chest, and guessed that it must have punctured a lung. If only Charlie had let him keep his armor – he hadn't ended up facing the beast after all.

The next thing Dean knew he was lying on something hard, looking up at a plain ceiling. He noticed that his breath was coming easier now, and that he couldn't see the shaft of the arrow sticking out of his chest any longer. Well, that was a good sign, but it didn't give him a clue as to where he was.

That came in the form of Castiel's voice beside him. “Dean.” Dean went to turn his head and lift his body to look over at him, but he stopped when Castiel said, “Don't move, you're still injured.” Dean stayed in place and relaxed the muscles he had tensed in preparation for the movement.

“Where are we?”

“Back on the ship.”

Dean was silent for a moment before speaking again. “Well now that I know what being shot with an arrow feels like, I can honestly say-”

“That was a big risk. It's lucky you survived.”

“Well hey I mean you brought me back from Hell once, you could do it again right?” Dean said with a slight laugh, trying to play off the seriousness of the situation after finally having had a moment to realize what he had done.

“I brought you back once, Dean, but I won't be able to do it again. You need to be more careful.”

“Yeah why should I?”

Dean saw Castiel looking at him as if it were obvious. Which, okay, it kind of was.

“Why would you put your own life at risk? It wasn't necessary.”

“I thought it was what I was supposed to do, okay? You've made it clear that I'm not supposed to still be alive, and with all your talk about timelines and events that have to happen and all that I figured I must still be around to make something in another universe happen or not happen, and I thought that was it.”

“You don't have a duty to the multi-verse, Dean. That is my burden.”

“Well then what the hell am I still here for? If I don't have a purpose then I shouldn't be around.”

Castiel didn't say anything for a moment, studying Dean. “You don't think you deserved to be saved.”

“Hell no I don't. Cause you know what Cas, my home is gone, Sammy's gone. I sacrificed everything for him, sending myself to Hell, and for what? So that he'd live another four months before our universe fucking died? And you know why I did it in the first place? I did it so that I wouldn't have to live without Sam. But it ended up happening anyway. I'm a worthless selfish bastard and if anyone should have survived it should have been him, not me.”

Castiel cocked his head to the side. “How can you consider yourself worthless with all the lives you've saved?” he asked.

“Well they're all going to die anyway right? I just help to postpone it, let them live happier and longer I guess. That's not much.”

“It's something.”

“Yeah, but does it really matter when their universe could just up and disappear a moment later?”

Things were silent between them for several moments. Castiel had thought of all this before, of course, but it was strange to hear it from someone else as well. “You should rest,” he said eventually.

“Yeah.”

Castiel left Dean alone in the medical bay after that, once he'd given him clear instructions not to move or try to get up until Castiel returned and gave him the all clear. Dean had only grunted in reply, but seemed to understand the instructions as he hadn't so much as turned his head to watch Castiel walk out of the room and into the hallway.

He went to the control room, getting down in under the console to do some adjusting and tinkering while he thought. Dean had said that he thought he was around, that he hadn't resolved because he was needed to make something – or perhaps multiple somethings – happen in another universe. Such an idea hadn't occurred to Castiel, but he thought about it it seemed like a very plausible explanation. Or the best one he had at the moment, at any rate.

But there remained the question of Dean's sacrificial tendencies. There'd been a few occasions in the time since Dean had joined Castiel where Dean had put himself in mortal danger, but Castiel had attributed them to simple bravery, recklessness at most – but the event in the forest had him looking back and reanalyzing each of them.

Castiel found that the common point in each one had been that someone's life had been in danger, and Dean had stepped in to do his best to stop them from dying. Despite what he thought of himself it was clear to Castiel that Dean was in fact selfless, willing to give all of himself to help others in need. And even though Dean was apparently questioning “the point of it all,” he still did it without a second's thought.

This confused Castiel, who was used to following the Lord's guidance in choosing whom to save and when – the thought of saving anyone and everyone in need had never crossed his mind, perhaps because doing so wouldn't always benefit the multi-verse. It was a foreign concept to him, to say the least.

When Castiel returned to the medical bay to check on Dean Dean spoke first. “What happened to Charlie? She give the venom to her mom?”

“No, she – changed her mind, when she found out who tried to kill her. It had something to do with her father. I didn't look any further, I was busy.”

Dean made a sound of acknowledgement and they didn't say anything else as Castiel checked the status of Dean's wound on the screens in the room. “You can go to your room to rest,” Castiel told him a few minutes later. “But don't sleep on your side It should be fully healed when you wake up.”

Dean nodded and sat up slowly, grabbing his shirt from the small table on the far wall before leaving the room – heading in the wrong direction, Castiel noted. He wanted to correct Dean, who was still learning his way around the interior of the ship, but Castiel was fairly certain that his doing so would not ease Dean's somber mood so he remained silent.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well if you've made it this far I have a treat for you, another song! Or two songs depending on how you look at it: [Flesh and Bone by The Killers](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPW0t3ysrGc) and [Flesh and Bone by The Killers (Jacques Lu Cont Remix)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH1nOfi9rIg). The first one is the original with full lyrics, the second is a remix with a better instrumental but some lyrics missing. I consider it to be a kind of theme song for the fic as a whole. Enjoy!

They'd just gotten in from an alien planet whose name he couldn't pronounce, having helped to break up a gang which would have become a corrupt political party in a decade's time. Dean was feelings pretty good, definitely not tired yet. “So where to next Cas?” he asked as he leaned against the railing, listening to the now familiar sound of the ship dematerializing.

Cas looked at him around the centre column. “Wherever we are needed,” he replied, shrugging and looking back down to adjust the controls. They stood in a companionable silence as the ship flew, bringing them into a new universe for them to save, fix, or explore.

Once they were in the new universe Cas started to do his frown that Dean knew meant his time sense was being a dick. “What's up, can't sense a disturbance in the Force?” Which would be awesome, actually, because Dean always enjoyed it when they get to do something random in universes that were holding up fine. They hadn't been able to go to the wild west yet, the timelines always too vulnerable in the universes they visited, but some of the other stuff they had done since Dean's arrival had been awesome.

“No – yes – there's something there, but I can't tell what or where it is.”

Close enough. “We have a ship that can literally go anywhere right? How 'bout we do something to kill the time, maybe you just gotta wait a little while for the stars to line up.”

Cas looked up from where he had been fiddling with one of the controls. “Do you have something in mind?” Cas wasn't very creative, and they usually relied on the Random setting for choosing their destinations.

“Well I never did get to see a Led Zeppelin concert,” Dean said with a grin, pushing his hands into his pockets.

Cas's lips quirked towards a smile. “Very well,” he said, pulling a monitor over to where he was standing. After a moment he said, “Knebworth House, August 4th 1979, does that sound alright?”

“Awesome,” Dean said, shifting his weight off of the railing and onto his feet so that he was standing upright. He glanced down at what he was wearing. “D'you think I need to change?” He was wearing normal clothes – jeans, t-shirt, plaid, jacket – since the planet they had just come from had never had contact with humans, so wouldn't have any expectation for his clothing.

Cas glanced over from where he stood at the controls. “You should be fine. You're not wearing anything that wasn't available in 1979.”

Dean nodded just as the materialization sound started. He walked towards the door and waited for Cas's nod to say that the ship had entered all the dimensions fully and he could go outside. He knew that Cas didn't like it when he went outside before he could check the monitors for possible danger, but Dean tended to be a little impatient. Besides, he had proven in the past several days – week, weeks? It was impossible to tell, he usually just slept when he felt tired and they continued when he woke up, because Cas didn't need to sleep – that he was capable of handling himself wherever they ended up. At Cas's nod he pushed open the doors and stepped outside.

Maybe this time waiting would have been a good idea.

“Uh Cas you sure you got the date right?” Dean called over his shoulder.

“Yes, why?”

“Because these guys do not look like they're waiting in line for a Zep concert,” Dean said, and when Castiel looked up and out of the open doors he saw what Dean meant. He slammed the final lever down and rushed out the doors behind Dean, hearing them shut behind him as he came to an abrupt stop beside Dean, who had his hands in the air. Castiel shot them a quick, slightly confused glance before doing the same. Dean usually had a better idea of what to do in these situations, especially when there were guns involved.

In front of them stood two guards, their guns raised and pointed at Dean and Castiel. The guards were standing on either side of a large doorway leading into a huge stone building, which Castiel could tell was in fact Knebworth House, so at least they had ended up in the correct place, if not the correct time.

“Who goes there? Where did you come from?” said one of the men in a strong English accent.

“Now now gentlemen put your guns down, no need to intimidate our guests,” came a voice from the doorway. A stern-looking man dressed in a suit emerged, and at his appearance the guards raised their guns and stood to attention. “I imagine they're simply a part of the Kelly party, yes?”

“Wha- yeah, yeah, that's right,” Dean answered with a smile and a nod before Castiel could open his mouth. He lowered his hands and Castiel did the same. “Sorry we're late.”

“You see?” the man said, looking over at the guards. “With the family visiting you can't go pointing your guns at anyone you don't recognize. A simple question can save you from scaring the guests.” He turned back to Dean and Castiel and gave them a tight smile. “My apologies, things have been quite hectic since the main party arrived. Can I help you with anything, or shall I let you get on with your duties?” he said, and Castiel noticed him giving Dean clothing a disapproving look. What he was wearing may have been fine for a trip to 1979, but not – whenever this was. He reached out for the knowledge – they were in 1849. And this was where the universe's problem was. He wondered why his ship had displayed the incorrect year on the screen, and made a mental note to check the dimensional sensors and their calibration once they were done here and before they entered the next universe.

“Nah we got this, thanks though,” Dean said, putting his hand on Castiel's shoulder and leading him through the door past the guards and man. Dean heard the man say something to the guards in a low voice once they were a few steps away, and let Cas guide them to somewhere where they could talk and not be disturbed.

Once they had gone through a few short hallways Cas stopped walking and so did Dean. “So I take it we're not in 1979?” Dean said, dropping his hand from Cas's shoulder and leaning against the wall as he looked both ways down the hallway.

“It's 1849,” Cas replied, his eyes scanning the hallway as well before returning to Dean's face. “The problem's here, but I can't feel anything more than that.”

“Something cockblocking your spidey sense?”

Cas frowned. “There may just be facts that haven't solidified yet. We'll have to wait until I know more.”

“What should we do in the meantime then? You able to tell anything about this place?”

Cas shook his head. “Not much, but I do know that your clothing isn't appropriate here. You'll have to change to avoid suspicion.” He paused, closing his eyes for a moment. “Upstairs, turn left, second door on the right. There should be clothing for you there, but you'll have to pick the lock.”

Dean smirked, pulling a small knife out of his pocket and tossing it up low in the air before catching it again. “No problem. What are you gonna do while I do that?”

“I'll see what I can find out about what's going on here and what cover we'll need if any. I shouldn't be long.”

“Right yeah, let's meet back here. And if you use a perception filter don't forget to take the damn thing off and don't sneak up on me. Make some noise or something, almost gave me a heart attack last time.”

“My apologies, I'll try to remember.”

“Alright, be quick. Back here in five?”

Castiel nodded before turning around and heading back the way they had come. Dean could tell when he had activated his perception filter because while Dean could still see Cas he had to strain his eyes to do so. When he blinked Cas was gone, and the last glimpse he managed to catch of him was of the tail end of his trenchcoat as he rounded the corner.

Dean looked down the other end of the hallway and spotted a staircase about halfway down, so he headed for it to find the room Cas had mentioned.

It ended up being easy to find, and the lock simple to pick – a quick well-placed flick with his knife and the doorknob turned in his hand. The room was dark, the curtains drawn – not that there would be much light coming in anyway, because the clouds had been dark and overcast when he and Cas had arrived, the air humid as if it had rained recently and would again. He walked the dozen paces it took to cross the room and pulled them open anyway. The window looked out onto a courtyard, and Dean noticed that there were guards at each door leading out of it, all as stern-looking as the guy they had talked to coming in. Dean watched them for a moment but they all stood unmoving at their posts, so Dean turned away to look around the room.

There was a wardrobe on the wall that backed on the hallway, so Dean crossed back over to open it. When he saw a person inside it he was caught completely off guard and couldn't help but jump in surprise. “Woah!” he gasped as the person – a young boy, fourteen, fifteen? – looked back at him with wide eyes, clearly afraid. Dean recovered quickly, and when the boy didn't move he said, “Hey kid you alright?”

“Are they gone?”

“Is who gone? You talking 'bout the Kellys?” he reached out his hands in a placating gesture but it only caused the boy to gasp and jump further into the wardrobe, hitting the back. “Hey hey it's cool, I'm here to help,” Dean said quietly, not wanting to spook him again. “Who're you talking about?”

“The men.”

“What men?”

“They took the masters and the other servants,” he said, speaking quickly and quietly, perhaps afraid they would be overheard.

“Alright alright just calm down and start from the beginning. What's your name?”

“Edmund sir,” he said, eyes falling to the floor.

“Okay Edmund you said they kidnapped people? But there are guards outside.”

Edmund was shaking his head. “They knocked out the real guards and took their places.”

“Do you know where they took everyone?”

“No, when I realized what was happening I locked the door and I hid.” He was looking up at Dean fearfully.

Dean ran a hand through his hair. “We gotta go tell Cas, I bet this is what we came here for. C'mon kid, follow me.”

“But the men-”

“Don't worry, I got this,” Dean said, walking to the door and peaking out, checking down both ends of the hallway. Edmund exited the wardrobe and stepped up behind him carefully. “Coast's clear, let's go.”

Edmund followed meekly behind Dean, trying to keep himself small and keeping his eyes on Dean's feet in front of him. He didn't make a sound, too shocked when someone grabbed him from behind – Dean heard the scuffle of Edmund struggling with his assailant, but there was already a gun pressed into his back by that point.

“Hands where we can see them,” a voice behind Dean said. He debated quickly on whether to fight back or not – he had a gun in his jacket, and there were probably only two guys – but Edmund had mentioned that some people had been kidnapped, and if people needed rescuing...The place was huge from the looks of it, so it would be easier to just be shown where they were being held. Besides, he doubted they'd put him anywhere he couldn't get out of. So he went along quietly, paying close attention to the path they took.

He and Edmund were led downstairs, down several hallways and then outside. Once outside Dean got an even better look at the place and the grounds (and he really hoped they'd be able to go to that concert once everything was sorted out here, because it looked amazing). He was silently glad that the guards were saving him the trouble of tracking down the prisoners, because searching everywhere would have taken forever.

They were led to what Dean soon found out was the pump house – though why the hell a pump house had chains on the wall Dean had no idea – and as soon as Dean and Edmund were chained to the others they were left alone.

Except they weren't really alone.

There was a cage on the wall opposite from where everyone was chained, and inside the cage was a man dressed in torn black robes. The cage was small and the man was curled up in a ball in the middle of the cage, sitting up but with his eyes closed.

Dean noticed immediately that everyone was staring at the cage fearfully, and didn't seem to have taken any notice of his and Edmund's arrival.

So of course he decided to break the silence.

“So tell me why are you all giving sleepyhead over there the stink eye? 'Cause looks to me like he's just as much of a prisoner as you folks.”

“Don't speak!” one person whispered.

“It will wake up if we make too much noise!” said another.

“How long have you guys been down here?” Dean asked, looking around at everyone.

“The men came early yesterday,” Edmund whispered in Dean's ear, apparently convinced by the others' fear of the caged man that they should remain silent.

At that moment everyone collectively jumped as the man's eyes opened. And Dean could kind of see why – his eyes were solid black like those of a demon. “The hell?” he breathed as the man stared towards them unblinkingly.

“You're not afraid?” the man said, his voice clear if a little high – he sounded subdued, or maybe drugged.

“You're a demon?” Dean said, searching the area for a devil's trap that was keeping the man from breaking out of the cage. He found none – that was weird.

The man chuckled lightly, shaking his head, though because of his eyes it felt that he never broke eye contact with any of them. “Never met a demon. No, I'm a wolf. Actually, I'm much more than that,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning upwards slightly.

By this point Dean had already fished his knife out of his jacket pocket and was working on the shackles on his wrists – they soon clicked open, since he could move both hands separately and they were in front where he could see what he was doing. He shoved them out of his lap and said, “So you're a werewolf?” Dean had a bad feeling about the situation, so instead of going for one person's handcuffs he went towards the wall where the chains were attached, inspecting them to see how he could get them out of the wall.

The man held his mouth open for several moments as if considering the words – either Dean's or his own, they couldn't tell – before he spoke. “A were-wolf,” he said slowly, enunciating every syllable, drinking in every sound. His smile widened. “I like the sound of that. But you're not normal yourself are you? You come from the Nothing.” He paused. “You have no idea what's waiting out there for you. Or what's not – when you deal with the great Nothing it can be oh so hard to tell. It's a shame that you're freeing my meal, because now I'll have to go after you instead.” He raised his head as if something had caught his attention or he had heard something. A grin spread slowly across his face. “Soon, very soon. Run while you can, I'll be coming.”

As the man – werewolf – had been speaking Dean had been working at the pins holding the chain's hook to the wall, and managed to pull it free with a few good tugs and loosening with his knife. Some of the things the man had said confused Dean or just plain didn't make any sense, but he had other things to worry about. He had a lead on what type of creature it was, and right now he had to get these people to safety and then find a way to destroy it. Simple. Familiar.

He led them out of the pump house, keeping tight to the wall as he surveyed the yard and the house. He didn't see movement in any of the windows facing in their direction, and there were no entrances on that side of the house, though he did spot a door that looked like it would lead to a cellar.

He was right, and once everyone was safely (or so they hoped) hidden inside Dean gave them his knife and instructions for how to free each other from the shackles around their wrists. After closing the door to the cellar behind him Dean went about trying to find a way into the house without using one of the entrances – for some reason there was no direct access to the interior of the house from the cellar. Just as he was about to shut a window behind him he heard the howl of a wolf coming from the pump house, followed by several loud crashes.

Shit.

He had no idea where Castiel had been headed when they had split up, and he wasn't sure if he would have stuck around their meeting place, as it had been far more than five minutes since they had agreed to meet back up. Dean had his gun out and at his side as he walked through the hallways, peeking carefully around every corner before proceeding. There only appeared to be guards at the exits, for which Dean was thankful; but he also didn't want to risk being discovered, in case the escape of the others was discovered as a result.

When he looked around one corner he was almost hit in the face by Castiel walking towards him. He jumped up and away from the wall, Cas stopping in front of him.

“Cas-”

“There's trouble,” Cas said over Dean. “I still can't see what it is, but it's inside the house-”

“It's a werewolf,” Dean said. “Or something like one anyway. Did you find anything?”

“Yes, there are legends, hundreds of years worth of stories of wolf packs and children going missing. Are you sure it's a werewolf?”

“Yeah I'm pretty damn sure, you know of anything else that goes from human to wolf? Because I sure don't.”

Cas was shaking his head. “Are you sure it was human? Did you see it change?”

“No, I got out before it did but I heard it howl, and it had demon-eyes before it happened. What do you know what it actually is?”

“A lupine wavelength haemovariform,” Cas answered. “Werewolves as you know them are caused by a mutation in the blood, a disease caused by being bitten, this is the 'original' werewolf. It requires a different power source, which would explains the energy surge I felt before. I don't know much about it but it's likely very different from the werewolves you've encountered.”

“Your spidey sense not giving you any hints any weaknesses anything?”

Cas shook his head again. “No.”

Dean checked his gun. “I got some normal bullets in here, think that'll stop it? Or salt maybe?”

“It may slow it down but it won't kill it,” Cas replied, looking down the hallway behind Dean and then down the hallway he had come from. “There's a library over there, I was going to go in but I sensed your presence.”

“Alright library great, maybe it'll have something useful,” Dean said as they walked quickly over to the large double doors at the end of the hall.

The library was huge and well stocked, and they wasted no time in starting to search the shelves for anything that might provide them with useful information. They brought several books down from the shelves and spread them out on a table.

They had just set the last of the books down and were opening the first of them when they heard heavy footsteps coming from down the hall. “It's coming,” Cas said, walking quickly around the table, his trenchcoat billowing out behind him as he made his way to the door, Dean a step behind, pulling his gun out of his pocket.

“Can we stop it?” Dean asked.

“I don't know,” Cas said, reaching forward and slamming the door shut and bringing the long wooden bar down to lock it. He stepped back beside Dean, who had his gun raised and aimed at the door.

They could hear the wolf sniffing on the other side, and see its shadow in the crack under the door.

“Why isn't it coming in?” Dean whispered.

Cas was frowning, and stepped forward slowly towards the door. “The hell are you doing Cas get back here!” Dean whispered loudly. But Castiel ignored him and ran his fingers over the wood of the door, bringing them to his nose and smelling.

“Mistletoe,” he said, turning to Dean.

“Mistletoe?” Dean said, face exasperated as he kept his eyes trained on the door. A few moments later the wolf stopped sniffing and they heard it walk back down the hallway. Dean lowered his gun, finally looking at Cas. “What was that?”

Cas moved to run his hands along the wall beside the door, smelling it again. “The walls appear to have been saturated with mistletoe oil. It's toxic to some species, perhaps the wolf included.”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “Wow, okay, never heard of mistletoe being used as monster repellant. So are we safe in here then?”

“We should be,” Castiel said, walking across the room to the other door, ensuring it was locked and testing the wood there. “It's everywhere, it should keep the wolf out while we search for a way to destroy it.”

“Let's get to it then,” Dean said, thumbing the safety on his gun and walking back over to the table where they had piled all their books, placing it down within easy reach.

The only sound for some time was the turning of pages and occasionally the heavy thump of a book being closed and another being placed atop it. Eventually Dean spoke. “Hey Cas I think I found somethin',” he said, pushing the book to face Castiel and walking around the side of the table so that they could read the page together.

In the year of our Lord, 1540, under the reign of King James the Fifth, an almighty fire did burn in the pit.

Above the text was a picture of a shooting star surrounded by flames as it fell towards the ground.

“So something fell to Earth, could it have something to do with the wolf thing?”

Cas's eyebrows were furrowed as he looked down at the book. “Yes, that explains where it came from, but not what it wants or why it's here.”

“Well couldn't we just go back and stop it from falling to Earth maybe send it into the Sun or something? That would stop everything that's happening here right?”

“The damage and deaths the impact caused would be part of events in this universe, stopping it would alter too much. We have to deal with it here. Now.”

“Well have you come up with any bright ideas on how to do that, because I haven't.” He paused. “It can be killed, right?”

“Yes, all non-psychic creatures can be permanently destroyed, though some more easily so than others.”

They spent some more time looking, and at one point Dean's legs were starting to hurt from standing up for so long (the only chairs in the room were heavy-looking armchairs by the fireplace on the other side of the room, which they hadn't bothered to pull up to the table). “Well Cas unless you've found something and haven't said anything then I think we're right back where we started.”

“It would seem so. My time sense isn't giving me any more information, I don't know what we should do next.”

“You said before that it was the original werewolf, so could it be killed the same way as werewolves even though it technically isn't one? I mean if they're related then they should theoretically have the same weaknesses.”

“It seems to be our only option. What do you know about werewolves?”

Dean couldn't help but grin, feeling somewhat smug at finally knowing more than Castiel. Cas's time sense always seemed to be one step ahead of him. “We'll need silver.”

Dean saw Castiel look up at the ceiling, and the Soldier's eyes widened. “We need to leave.”

“Why? The thing clearly can't get in here, so let's figure out a plan before we-” Cas motioned up with his head without looking down, and when Dean looked up he saw the silhouette of the wolf climbing on the glass ceiling of the library. “Son of a bitch, what-”

The wolf punched at the glass and shards began to fall towards Dean and Castiel. Dean caught a flash of Cas's wings moving out to cover him before he blinked and lost sight of them, the falling glass seeming to bounce on thin air and slide to the side. “Come on Dean!” Cas said, already making his way towards the exit. Behind them they heard several crashes, bookshelves falling against each other as the wolf used them to make its way down from the high ceiling.

“So what's the plan?” Dean asked as they rounded a corner away from the library, turning again to push open a door and jump down a staircase towards the ground floor.

“We need to find more mistletoe, or some silver if you believe that will work.”

“Well it ain't Christmas so I dunno know where they'd keep the mistletoe. Maybe the kitchen'll have some silver knives?”

They heard another crash from behind them as they were rounding the turn on the staircase, the wolf having come through the door of the stairwell; then all of a sudden it was thrown backwards through the doorway as they kept going.

“What the hell was that?”

“It would have jumped on us, I hit it with one of my wings.”

“Wait I thought you said your wings aren't solid?”

“They only are when I want them to be. This way,” he said, turning to the left once they reached the bottom of the staircase.

They sprinted down several more hallways before Castiel led them through a door and into the kitchen. Dean turned and slammed the door shut behind them, and, not finding a lock, piled nearby tables and chairs against it while Cas looked around. “Don't just stand there start digging through the drawers! We gotta find something,” Dean said as he worked quickly. Castiel crossed the room and opened a cupboard under the counter, pulling out several dinner knives.

“This is all they have,” Cas said, turning to show them to Dean, who had stopped piling things and was listening for sounds of the wolf.

Dean glanced at the knives Castiel was holding up. “Any chance you could use some mojo to make them into something I could stab it with? Because otherwise it won't so much as a scratch the guy.”

Cas nodded and closed his eyes, concentrating on the knives held in his grasp. After several seconds they seemed to melt together into one knife, longer than the originals and with a sturdy handle. Once it stopped changing Cas opened his eyes and looked up, lifting the knife to show Dean. He stepped forward, taking the knife from Cas and checking its sharpness with his other thumb before nodding.

“Awesome now we just gotta get close enough to the sucker to stab it.”

“That's not advisable Dean.”

“Yeah well it's our only option, unless you can make the silver into bullets.”

“I can't-”

“Exactly. So here's what we'll do, you go out there and lead the thing here, hit it with your wings again if it gets too close. Then when it comes through the door I'll jump on its back and stab it.”

“We should find another option.”

“Look Cas there are innocent people hiding in the basement, we gotta kill this thing before it finds them. It's our only option, just lead the thing in here and I'll take care of it. Go!”

Castiel held his gaze for several moments, his shoulders raising as if he was puffing himself up to say something, but then he seemed to deflate as he turned towards the door. “Very well. Be ready.”

With a swift push he knocked everything that Dean had piled against the door aside with ease, and Castiel wondered if the noise alone would be sufficient to attract the werewolf's attention. He opened the door and left the kitchen, allowing the door to swing shut behind him but not to latch.

He fumed silently as he walked down the hallway, allowing his time sense to guide his path. Just as he was starting to get used to travelling with the human, when he thought that their roles were clearly defined, Dean would go and muddle everything up and make Castiel doubt himself again.

And it was worse when Dean was right. Which he usually was, but that was beside the point.

Castiel still worried at times about Dean's sacrificial-bordering-on-suicidal tendencies, but thankfully there hadn't been any repeats of the incident in Harlindon Woods. Dean's willingness to throw himself into the line of fire no matter the risk still puzzled Castiel at times, but he thought that it was simply attributable to Dean's – goodness, there was no other word for it. As much as he wished he could, Castiel couldn't really fault him for that, though the human's mortality was still a notable cause of concern.

Castiel could sense the werewolf before he heard it, and had only a moment to turn around back towards the kitchen and start to run before the werewolf crashed through a door and started to follow him. All according to plan so far.

He had no problem staying ahead of the werewolf but not going fast enough to lose it; he'd limited his speed when running with Dean, who himself was fast but had nothing on Castiel's full capabilities. Not having the human to worry about made the baiting easier, and it wasn't long before Castiel had made his way back to the kitchen. He pushed through the door, leaving it open as he made his way further into the room, scanning for signs of Dean and what his plan of attack might be.

When he reached the far wall on the other side of the counter, hoping he was giving Dean enough room to execute his plan (whatever it was), he turned around to see the werewolf enter the doorway, eyes on Castiel. But Castiel's eyes went upwards to the space between the top of the door frame and the ceiling, where Dean was perched, heels on the door frame and free hand bracing himself on the ceiling.

Then Dean allowed himself to drop down from him position and right onto the unsuspecting werewolf's back. It barely had time to react before there was a knife in its throat, and when it tried to howl no sound came out of its mouth. Its legs collapsed out from under it and it fell to the ground, the sudden movement and momentum causing Dean to fall forward onto the ground, but he rolled to absorb the impact and was back on his feet in an instant.

The werewolf's body shuddered and its eyes went from black to solid white before it stilled, dead.

Dean looked over at Cas with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Told you, piece of cake.”

Castiel looked away from Dean and back at the door. “How did you get up there?” he asked with a frown and tilt of his head, glancing around the room. All the tables and chairs were still in a collapsed, messy pile beside the door, not high or stable enough for Dean to climb.

Dean just winked at him before turning his gaze downwards towards the werewolf's body, which as they watched slowly changed back into that of a human. The knife fell with a clatter to the floor as the neck shrank but the wound remained. “Well at least he'll be easier to carry,” Dean said. “Do we need to salt and burn it or will it stay dead?”

“That won't be necessary, but we should dispose of the body.”

When they took the body to the ship (apparently the ship could take care of things like that, but Dean wasn't sure he wanted to know the details – the thing still managed to freak him out enough as it was without knowing how it could dispose of bodies) they found that all the guards had disappeared, piles of their clothing and their guns the only evidence of where they once stood. Castiel theorized that the werewolf had needed to feed on willing souls in order to transform outside of a full moon (Cas said that it was only in the first quarter; the clouds were hiding the moon from view), and that the reaping of the guards' souls was the energy surge that he had sensed earlier in the night.

Dean left Castiel to take care of the business in the ship and went to the cellar to tell the people that it was safe to come out. After quelling their fears and concerns about the guards and the words the caged man had said they finally emerged and reentered the house. Edmund was the only one to thank Dean, giving him back his knife; none of the others seemed to know what to think of him, and were wary of him despite the fact that he had rescued them.

When Dean entered the ship he saw Castiel standing at the controls with his back to the door, his wings visible and outstretched. He didn't appear to have noticed Dean, so Dean took the opportunity to get a better look at the Soldier's wings than he had been afforded before. They were as big as he remembered, spanning almost the entire width of the control room; the feathers would brush the walls should the wings move at all. Speaking of the feathers, they were long and solid black, but they reflected the light of the control room, making them appear to have a multi-colored sheen.

Dean noticed that Castiel's left wing was shaking, and that a good number of feathers near the edge weren't sitting straight like on his right wing, sticking up at odd angles instead. He realized that Cas must be trying to shake the feathers back into place, but it didn't seem to be very effective.

“Problem there Cas?” Dean asked without even thinking about it. “Or-” he started, not sure it was okay to acknowledge the wings. Castiel could be weird about some things, and maybe his wings were one of them.

Castiel looked over his shoulder at Dean, a look of concentration and annoyance on his face. “I didn't expect that hitting the werewolf would disrupt my feathers. It's very uncomfortable, but I can't reach them.”

“You want me to-?” Dean said, walking forward and gesturing at the wing with his hands.

Castiel turned his body slightly towards Dean, tilting his head. Then he seemed to realize what Dean was implying, and nodded. “I would be grateful.” He brought both his wings in towards his body, and their volume seemed to just disappear; then he re-extended his left wing partway towards Dean, keeping it low to the ground and giving the human access to the disturbed feathers.

Dean reached forward towards Castiel's wings, touching some feathers lightly to get a feel for them and how easily they would move back into place. He saw Castiel's body tense, but when the Soldier didn't protest Dean kept going, reaching up and essentially combing through the feathers with his fingers to straighten them and flatten them into the plane of the rest of the wing. The feathers felt different than the bird feathers he used to pick up off the ground when he was little: besides being bigger they were also softer, the barbs less stiff than bird feathers, and they were oddly warm to the touch. As Dean ran his hands through the feathers he felt his hands being covered very lightly in an oil of some kind, similar in feeling to running one's hands through their hair, but it wasn't unpleasant.

He worked through every disturbed section quickly but gently, and soon all the feathers had been returned to their rightful places and orientations. Once Dean was satisfied he took a small step back, clearing his throat to get Castiel's attention and to signal that he was done. Castiel started slightly at the sound, but when he saw that Dean had moved away and appeared to be done he turned his body away from Dean again and spread both his wings fully, flexing them and shaking both slightly. Satisfied, he returned his wings to the dimension where they normally resided. Dean's eyes widened slightly in surprise at their sudden disappearance, but didn't otherwise react or say anything.

“Thank you Dean,” Castiel said stiffly, turning back up to the controls and starting to fiddle with them, the dematerialization sound filling the inside of the ship.

“Hey no problem,” Dean replied with a shrug. After a pause, “So Cas about that concert...”


	5. Chapter 5

“We're entering a pocket,” Castiel said with a deep frown.

“A pocket? Isn't that one of those things that we'd need to find Sam?”

“Yes, but this one is of a different universe. And it's oddly stable.” Castiel started to input several things. “Usually they only last for a few minutes, but this one isn't deteriorating.”

“Is that bad?”

“I'm not sure,” Castiel said, and had to look away from the screen to move around the controls as they entered the pocket. A light blue light flashed on the control panel.

“What's that for?” Dean asked, pointing to it as Cas was on the other side of the controls.

Castiel looked up and stepped around the column to see what Dean was pointing at. Dean had never seen the expression Cas now wore – shock, confusion, and fear all rolled into one.

Cas began moving frantically around the controls, multi-tasking with the screens as he landed the ship. Dean leaned back against the railing, arms crossed, watching Castiel and staying out of his way – he didn't know what was going on but he could tell it was either really weird or really bad if Cas was this worked up over it.

“Care to fill me in on what's up Cas?” Dean asked once they had landed, staying standing where he was.

Castiel's grip on the edge of the screen tightened at Dean's voice. “Stay here,” he said before moving away and towards the doors, which swung shut behind him a moment later before Dean had even realized that Cas had moved.

“Woah!” he called, storming towards the doors himself to follow Castiel.

Once outside it took him a few seconds to realize that he was on a ship – it was night but he could hear the engines and the sound of the wake from the stern. The deck was huge, and he wondered if it was a cruise ship – there were no lights or people or a pool for that matter, but it wasn't covered with barrels and fishing gear either and there were many chairs lined near the edges. There was a cold, biting wind caused by their movement over the water, and Dean was glad that he had kept his jacket on after their last trip.

He quickly spotted Castiel on the other side of the deck and hurried to catch up to him.

When he was a few feet away Castiel sensed his presence and spun around abruptly. “I told you to stay in the ship,” Castiel said with a powerful glare that he usually only used on people that majorly crossed him.

“Geez,” Dean said, holding his hands up and leaning back. “All I did was follow you. What's got you so worked up anyway? I've never seen you like this.”

Castiel remained silent for a moment as they held each other's gaze. “There's another ship here.”

“Yeah Cas I got that we're standing on it, tell me something I don't know.”

His expression hardened further at Dean's comment. Why was he so pissed all of a sudden? “Another ship, like mine.”

“Time travelling, universe hopping?”

“Yes.”

“So yours isn't the only one that can do that?”

“It should be. That's the problem.”

“You've lost me.”

“Come,” Castiel said, turning around and continuing in the direction he had been walking in before, his pace brisk.

“Hey talk to me here, I can't help if I have no clue what's going on,” Dean said from beside him, eyes scanning the deck carefully, trying to pick up something under a perception filter. No luck.

“There's someone else here, another Soldier. But there shouldn't be, they're gone. Having more than one Soldier in a universe is unadvisable, it's only completely safe in our home dimension. Just having two of our ships in the same place can – disrupt our time sense, because the TARDIS's interfere with each other.”

“TARDIS's?”

“Our ships,” Castiel clarified. “Now I can't tell who's here or whether they're dangerous, so we have to be – careful. Stay behind me.”

“Say Cas why haven't you mentioned any of this before? Might have been nice to know that we're not the only hope for the multi-verse or whatever, that we're not alone in this.”

“I said before, they're supposed to be gone, I'm the only one left.”

“Well isn't it a good thing then? That we've found another one?”

Castiel shook his head as he came to a stop. “There's a reason they're all gone, Dean, and it needs to stay that way.” He reached his hand out, and all of a sudden Dean could see a pillar only a foot away from his face – it had been hidden with a perception filter. With a slight start he took a step back, standing only slightly behind Castiel, who was running his hand over the surface of the wooden pillar (which now that Dean looked was thicker than the others along the same row) before pushing his hand inside a few inches and pushing against something solid inside, then tugging on something. The frown that hadn't left his face deepened as he tugged again before dropping his hand back to his side. “They're not there,” he said, stepping back and turning around and starting to walk back towards their own ship – TARDIS, Cas had called it; Dean liked that, it reminded him of the Impala, a proper name.

“What're we doing now?” Dean said as they crossed back around and to the other side of the deck.

“You are going to stay here,” Castiel said, opening the door but not going in and turning his head to meet Dean's eyes. “The state of the pocket could change at any moment, and you wouldn't be able to tell.”

“Hey you said your time sense was messed up, would you be able to?” Castiel's silence gave Dean his answer. “No way I'm staying in there while you're out here. Whatever we gotta do to fix this we'll do together.” He paused. “Why do we have to find them anyway?”

“To ensure that they won't do anything that could harm the multi-verse,” Castiel explained, entering the TARDIS and motioning for Dean to come in as well. “We've been brought here for a reason, they may be planning to cause trouble. You'll have to change,” he said, motioning towards the hallway where the wardrobe room was located.

Dean narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “I swear to God if you try and leave while I'm gone-”

“I won't.” They held each other's gaze for a moment longer before Dean gave a curt nod and went to get changed.

He made a quick stop in the weapons room on his way back out to wipe down his gun and to reload it and grab a spare magazine for his pocket.

When he returned to the console room he was relieved to see that Castiel had kept his word and was still there, reading something on one of the screens. “Hey Cas what time period is this?” he asked, pulling at the collar of his shirt in an effort to loosen it slightly.

“It's 1912,” Castiel replied, looking up from the screen. “And we're in the middle of a fixed point. Extra caution will be necessary.”

“Fixed point?” Dean asked as they left the TARDIS, Castiel locking the doors and handing Dean the key.

“In case the other Soldier finds it,” he explained. “I have my own,” he continued as Dean pocketed the key. “Fixed points are critical events in a universe's timeline, if they're altered it can be – bad, to say the least. For the entire multi-verse.” He paused. “We should split up to try and locate them, time is imperative.”

“How are we supposed to find them if we don't know who they are?” Dean asked, tugging one of his cuffs further down, the cold night air more noticeable without his normal jacket. “Or more specifically how the hell do I know?”

“They'll find you,” Castiel explained, eyes scanning the deck. “Soldiers can sense those that have travelled between universes, it's how I've found you on more than one occasion. He or she will be attracted to you to find out why you're here. Find out what they're doing in the middle of a fixed point, and bring them up here. I'll sense your approach to the ship and meet you here.”

“What if you find 'em?”

“We have an hour before we have to go. Be back here by then.”

Dean nodded, checking the time on his watch – which Castiel had upgraded one night so that it could sense the time of wherever they were – before tugging the cuff back over it to keep it hidden. 10:40. “I take the back and you take the front?” he said.

“Yes – see you soon,” he said, before they split up to proceed down below deck on their own ends of the ship.

-x-

Dean found an entrance to the lower decks at the back of the ship, a staircase that led into a large room with several doors and hallways leading out of it. The interior of the ship was pretty fancy – and he didn't just think that because everything was so shiny (it was a little scary actually, weren't ships supposed to be a little dirty at least?). He didn't know whether it was normal for ships in this time period – when were they again, 1912 Cas had said?

Through the door ahead of him when he reached the bottom of the stairs he could hear several voices, and he decided to have a quick look inside, hoping that if whoever they were looking for was inside he'd be able to attract their attention right away; Cas had seemed pretty on edge, and Dean wanted to get everything done and over with as quickly as possible.

When he opened the door he was hit with the strong smell of cigar smoke. Dean couldn't help but cough a little at the suddenness of the smell but quickly regained his composure; he'd been in bars that were worse, and at least the room was otherwise clean. Men were seated at tables throughout the room, many smoking (which explained the smell), some talking, some playing cards, only a few sitting alone and nursing drinks. They all seemed to be fairly well dressed, and Dean couldn't be sure but he thought he might have been slightly overdressed – but he figured that it was better than the alternative, so he didn't let it bother him.

The first thing he noticed about the room was that there was a bar, but he resisted the thought of pouring himself a drink. He didn't know what or who he may be dealing with, or whether they'd be hostile or not. Best to not have any of his sense impaired.

He got waved over from the door by a group of men seated around a table, drinks in their hands. He decided that he had time to sit down briefly, and maybe find out something useful, so he pulled up a chair and joined them.

He was immediately bombarded with questions. Dean had been right about being overdressed: the men said they didn't recognize him and were wondering what a first-class passenger was doing in the second-class smoke room. He didn't see a reason to dissuade them (and it seemed like as good a cover as any) so he went along with it quickly, saying he was stretching his legs and looking around the ship. This got the men talking about it, marvelling at the size, construction, food, everything. Dean was about to excuse himself so that he could search the rest of the ship, not seeing any sign that the person he was looking for was here, when one of the men said, “And to I'll be able to tell my grandchildren about this, being on the great Titanic on its maiden voyage. It will still be a marvel in a decade's time, mark my words.”

Dean started slightly at that, his attention caught. “Sorry, did you just say Titanic?”

The man looked over at Dean oddly. “I did, yes. What's wrong son?” he asked when he saw Dean's face fall slightly, Dean's mind racing.

“Sorry, you'll have to remind me what day is it today?”

“We're the fourteenth of April for another hour or so,” one man said, checking a pocket watch he pulled out of his jacket pocket.

“Shit,” Dean said, standing up abruptly. “I gotta go. Just – if something happens, if there's an emergency or something promise me you'll go up to the deck?”

“What, you mean like if the ship were to start sinking?” one of the men said, and the others laughed. “This ship can't sink, son, I don't know what you're on about.”

Dean didn't want to push his luck, or his time, so he just sighed and left the room in a hurry, the men's laughter following him out even after the door had closed behind him.

-x-

Dean walked through the halls of the ship, no real goal in mind other than to cover as much ground as possible. He kept a sharp eye on everything, gun in hand in his pocket. It was clear he was nothing more than bait at this point – he had no idea who they were looking for, and by the sounds of it they could easily be a bad guy – and okay, a bit more information would have been nice, they were on the freaking Titanic for fuck's sake, on the night it was going to sink, but he hadn't pushed it because they only had an hour. Cas had seemed pretty out of it since before they had landed, from the moment Dean had pointed out the light on the console.

Admittedly, sometimes Dean still didn't trust Cas, and Dean was pretty sure it went both ways. It had taken Dean awhile – and a rather impressive rescue, if he did say so himself – to prove to Cas that he could handle himself, and even now Dean could tell that Cas sometimes doubted him, though that mostly occurred when they weren't on Earth. Dean had proved his merit and skill here beyond a doubt.

Dean checked his watch when he left the cargo area at the bottom of the ship – or at least he was pretty sure it was the bottom, he hadn't been able to find a way to get any lower. He had about fifteen minutes to make his way back up to the TARDIS, and he had a pretty good idea of what would happen at that time. He wasn't interested in sticking around any longer than they had to, even if the ship took a while to sink after hitting the iceberg (according to the movie at least). No one had approached him – a few had given him odd looks because of his clothing, but hadn't said anything – so he guessed that Cas must have found whoever they were looking for, and everything would be dealt with by the time he got back to the TARDIS.

And then the ship shook.

“Shit,” Dean swore as he reached over to the wall for balance. This was soon, too soon, sooner than Cas had said. 

His heart was pumping fast now. He didn't like the idea of drowning. After a few moments the shaking stopped, and Dean took off at a run for the nearest staircase.

-x-

Castiel had spent the last forty minutes walking systematically down every accessible hallway in the front half of the ship, his presence going unnoticed by the first-class passengers he passed thanks to the perception filter he had activated once he and Dean had split up.

He hadn't felt the slightest of hints of the presence of another Soldier. His telepathic abilities didn't feel impaired by the presence of two ships, but he supposed he couldn't be sure, as it was such a rare occurrence that the feeling of his time sense being repressed had him doubting his other senses as well. He decided to go back up to the deck briefly to see if perhaps the other Solider had returned to their ship. If not he would do another quick sweep of the lower levels, and then find Dean.

As he was proceeding back up to the deck he was passed in the hallway by a laughing couple, hands joined as they sprinted down the hall and spilled onto the deck ahead of him. He didn't pay them much mind, thinking that if he concentrated his energies he might be able to glean a hint of who was here, which may lend a hint as to what was going on and why he and Dean had been brought here. If neither he nor Dean came across the other Soldier, and nothing happened to affect or change the events of the fixed point, then perhaps they were simply meant to pass through this pocket and hadn't needed to stick around. He missed the certainty of being able to trust in his time sense to tell him those sorts of things.

But the question remained of how there was a Soldier here, of how this universe appeared to have escaped the effects of the Moment. It had been designed to affect both resolved and unresolved universes, so why hadn't this Soldier and their ship been wiped from existence? Had they figured out a way to escape the effects? Could there be other survivors?

When he exited onto the deck he spotted the couple from before on the other side of the deck, still laughing and now kissing. He turned away and went towards where he and Dean had found the other ship.

He and Dean – even though he had done all the work, the powerful perception filter beyond Dean's ability to see, he still thought of it as something that they had both accomplished. Together. He didn't know what to think of this sort of thinking: he had been completely alone for so long that sometimes he still forgot that he had someone else to worry about, to keep safe. Dean existed for a reason – Dean had to be right about that, there was no other explanation – and he had to keep him alive until he could figure out what that reason was, what ultimate purpose Dean's presence served. If he died fixing a universe then such was his purpose, in addition to helping with all the ones in between, but if that wasn't his destiny Castiel had to make sure he was around to fulfill it, whatever it was.

When Castiel rounded the corner towards the pillar he stopped where he was. Standing beside the other ship stood Balthazar, hand forward to open the door, other hand wound around the waist of a short, blonde-haired woman dressed like a first-class waitress. He was looking down at her and grinning, telling her something quietly as he unlocked his ship.

“Balthazar?” Castiel said.

Balthazar raised his head and looked at Castiel over the woman's head. “Cas, what a surprise! Beautiful evening isn't it?”

“What are you doing here Balthazar.”

“Well I could ask you the same thing. Is anything wrong?”

“Why. Are. You. Here,” Castiel said, enunciating every word.

“I'm just enjoying myself on this historic voyage, and in about, oh, two minutes I'm going to stop this ship from sinking.”

“Why?”

“Why don't you come inside and I'll explain,” he said, opening the door and stepping inside, not looking back to see if Castiel was following. After a moment he did, entering the ship but leaving the door open behind him.

“Now, Astrid I must apologize for the interruption to our conversation but I'll be right with you once I'm done with my friend,” Balthazar said from beside the controls to the woman he had been with, who was now seated to his right on a jumpseat several feet back from the control column. “So, Cas what brings you to this fine universe?”

Castiel couldn't tell Balthazar that he was in a pocket universe – trying to escape one when part of events was a dangerous and doomed undertaking – so he told a partial truth. “My ship brought me here.”

“Well that's odd, I have everything under control why would it do that?”

“This is a fixed point Balthazar, you can't change it.”

“Oh can't I?” he said, looking up and spreading his hands. “I'll tell you what, there's a Rift nearby, right by the iceberg this ship is meant to hit. With a bit of power,” he said, reaching forward to flip a lever. “And spatial dimension inhibitors,” another flip of a lever. “I can open it just enough to absorb the iceberg and save everyone on board.”

“But why?”

“Mm simple really, I'm making this universe my home and I refuse to live somewhere where Celine Dion is anything other than a destitute lounge singer.”

“What?”

“Her God-awful song makes me want to smite myself, so-”

“No -Why are you choosing a home universe?”

“Well the War of course,” he replied, messing with several more controls.

“You're running away.”

“You could say that yeah, but I prefer the term 'cutting my loses,'” he looked up again. “There's going to be a war and it's going to destroy us, Cas. I'd rather not be a part of that, I'm not like you and Anna.”

There was much Castiel wanted to say to that, but he couldn't. He had wondered what had happened to Balthazar, why he had disappeared right before the war had started, but he wasn't sure he liked the answer he now had. “Altering a fixed point, you're putting the multi-verse at risk,” he said instead.

Balthazar scoffed lightly. “That's a myth, you know.”

“I can't let you do this.”

“But you will.”

Castiel felt something like a spark go through his wings, and he was instantly paralyzed. “Balthazar,” he said warningly.

“Oh come now it's just a precaution,” Balthazar said, waving Castiel off. “You see I was going to come aboard as First Mate, warn them about the bloody hunk of ice, but that wouldn't work so I came aboard as a passenger instead – this ship is absolutely marvelous, quite impressive really given the time period. Now then where was I, ah yes-”

But at that moment the ship shook.

“What the-” Balthazar said, gripping the edges of the console tightly to keep his balance. Once the shaking stopped he let go and started to operate the controls furiously before pulling a screen in front of him sharply. “What the blazes is it doing there?” he said angrily before inputting several things and checking some of the other screens.

“What is it what's happened?” Astrid asked from behind Balthazar.

“That bloody iceberg is here instead of four and a half miles in front of us!” he stopped, eyes moving to another screen before widening slightly. “Oh. Oh, oh dear.”

“What?” Castiel asked, Balthazar's expression worrying him.

Balthazar turned the screen he was looking at so that Castiel could see what it was showing. It was a view of outside his ship, and it took Castiel a moment to see what was causing Balthazar's distress. Then his face mirrored Balthazar's.

The screen showed the image of a dozen or so six-foot tall haloed and winged robots on both the deck and in the air above it, skin gleaming even in the night, white robes billowing about in the wind.

“The Host,” Cas said. “Did they come through the Rift?”

“Must have, there was no sign of them before,” Balthazar said, hands flying over the controls and eyes going from screen to screen. “They must have something powerful on the other side, they shouldn't have been able to reverse the tear.” A few moments later, “I can't reverse the flow, I don't have enough power.”

“Check the central power reader and the atron levels, could we do it with two ships?”

“Mm yes I expect so. Your ship is nearby I presume?”

“On the other side of the deck,” Castiel answered.

“Excellent, I'll let you go, you go to it and set up your atron drives and spatial manipulators, and once all that's done I can go come up with another plan to stop that song from existing. Too late now.” He reached forward and pressed a button on the control panel, releasing Castiel from the force that was keeping him paralyzed.

At that moment Dean appeared in the doorway of Balthazar's TARDIS, slightly out of breath. “Cas we got a problem.”

“Yes I know Dean, but we have a plan to fix it. We have to get back to the ship.”

“Dude people are getting pushed overboard by weird robots and we're just gonna run away? Also you could have mentioned before we split up that we were on the fucking Titanic!”

“My apologies Dean, but we have to hurry,” Castiel said, turning his back to Balthazar and walking towards the door and Dean.

“Be careful, I can't tell if these Host have been upgraded. And do drop in and visit sometime Cas, I'd love to show you around. Leave your hairless ape on your TARDIS though.”

“Who the hell-?!”

“Come on Dean, we have work to do,” Castiel said, motioning for him to exit the ship ahead of him. Once Dean was outside he turned back and saw Castiel hesitating in the doorway, his back to him.

“Dude, work? If we're in such a hurry let's go,” Dean said when Castiel didn't move after a moment.

“Right, yes,” Castiel said, snapping out of whatever daze he was in and turning around to follow Dean, closing the door of Balthazar's ship behind him.

As soon as the door was closed Dean spoke. “Was that the guy we were looking for? Is he going to try and do something?”

“Yes, his name's Balthazar and he was going to try to stop the ship from sinking but it went wrong. He needs my help to fix it, which is why we need to get back to the ship.”

The deck of the ship was busy, some passengers having been ushered up to the deck by the crew, who were apparently not aware of the robot situation. There were no Host in sight from where they were standing, but both Castiel and Dean were looking around warily, on their guard.

“What the hell are those things anyway? The angel robots?” Dean asked.

“They're the Host.”

“The Host? What kind of stupid name is that?”

“Humans aren't the first creatures to see Soldiers as – divine figures. No one knows where they were created or who built them, but they were built in our image with the task to destroy the multi-verse.”

“Yeah they're bad guys I got that, but why?”

“No ones knows, but they're very dangerous, even to Soldiers. I'm surprised they haven't started to shoot at anyone yet, they're usually much more violent.”

“Does it really matter? People are still dying from being pushed overboard. Wait is this going to cause a problem? People dying because of that instead of drowning or cold or whatever?”

“I don't know,” Castiel said, unable to tell due to his impaired time sense. “But their deaths are not fixed points, it will not be as bad as if Balthazar had managed to stop the ship from sinking.”

“So Balthazar was actually going to try and stop the ship from sinking? Why?”

“He – didn't like a song I think, I didn't understand the reference. He was going to get rid of the iceberg, but the Host used the opportunity to take control of the Rift and brought themselves through instead. We have to send them back, they are a great risk to the universe as well as Balthazar and I.”

“Okay so the ship's still going to sink? That hasn't changed? Or is that the same in this universe?”

“Yes, and it happens faster in this universe than it did in yours because of the damage. You have your gun?” Dean nodded. “It should stop them if they try to attack us, their circuitry is generally very sensitive, even a small amount of damage can render them immobile.”

“You think they'll attack us?”

“Maybe – not you, but they will be able to sense that I'm a Soldier. They're probably already aware of my ship and may attack us when we try to get to it.”

Cas walked forward towards the main deck area, Dean following close behind once he'd pulled his gun out of his pocket. They peaked their heads around the corner that hid them from view of the main deck. The deck was chock-full of Host, surrounding the passengers and pushing them towards the edges of the ship. There were still some flying through the air, though what task they were trying to accomplish neither of them could tell.

Castiel saw that there was a circle of Host surrounding his ship, stationed about a dozen feet away from it on all sides, the protective shields something that not even the Host could overcome; the fact that they could sense its location told Castiel that they weren't the original version and would therefore have at least halfway decent reflexes. He hoped that they weren't the most recent upgrade, because then their guns would be capable of immobilizing him, which would not be a good thing with their time as limited as it was.

The question now was how he would get into his ship – there were too many Host to take on at once, and Dean wouldn't be able to take them all down before they shot him (and Castiel was certain that if they were attacked they would start shooting, their current behaviour be damned). The ship's protective shields would allow him through of course, but it wouldn't repel the energy of a Host's electrolaser; he wouldn't be safe until he was inside his ship with the door closed behind him.

He wouldn't be able to fight his way past them, he was sure of that. But he could fly over them, bring his wings out to allow him to clear their heads, and if he was fast enough get inside his ship before they could turn around. It was a long shot to be sure, but he couldn't see any other options and no other plans were coming to mind. He calculated his chances of making it into his ship without getting shot as being around 3%, based on what he had interpolated about the Host model, their positions around his ship, and the variables of his planned maneuver.

Having Dean create some sort of distraction would increase his chance of success by 11%, but he wasn't willing to risk Dean's life for this – if Castiel got shot it would be painful, but the Host's electrolasers had always been deadly to non-Soldiers. He decided to instruct Dean to stay hidden, to stay out of sight until the Host were taken care of before coming to the ship. But he knew without calculating that the likelihood of Dean doing as he asked were just as bleak as his chances of getting out of their current situation unscathed.

“Dean, stay out of sight.”

“What?”

But Castiel had already left his side, steeling himself as he walked onto the deck and started towards his ship. He stretched out his wings, preparing to bring them into the physical dimension so that he could use them to jump over the Host and to the door of his ship. He could tell that the multi-dimensional binder that Balthazar had used to incapacitate him had shot the reserve power of his perception filters, even though it had only been used for a few minutes – there must have been a power surge – so he wouldn't be able to keep them and himself hidden once he brought them over.

The Host noticed him almost immediately, all turning in his direction, the ones at the front raising their arms, their hands splitting in half and revealing the hidden tips of their weapons. Judging by the size and shape of the barrels, they were in fact the latest model, so Castiel was in for some pain if they managed to hit him. Which was likely. He took several quick strides forward, bringing his wings in through the dimensions and pulling himself off the ground just in time to avoid the shots from several Hosts. He spared a brief thought to Dean, hoping that he had stayed hidden and was therefore protected from the shots that he had just avoided. He soared over the Host that separated him from his ship and landed just in front of the door, which had opened as he was in the air, his ship able to sense the situation even over the interference caused by the presence of another ship. He'd taken one step forward inside, already reaching behind him for the door handle so that he could close it behind him, just about to return his wings to their normal dimension, when he was hit.

It had been a long time since he'd encountered the Host and even longer since one had managed to land a hit on him, and the blow was even worse because the robot had managed to hit one of his wings – his right one, he realized as he managed to remove the left one from the physical dimensions. A Soldier's wings were the most vulnerable and sensitive part of their body, since they were usually hidden and not accessible to almost all other creatures in the multi-verse.

The pain was intense and focused, consuming all thought and concentration in Castiel's mind (a property of the energy type that the Host's guns used). His legs collapsed out from under him as he lost muscle control, but he managed to shift his weight before losing all control such that he fell into his ship. He felt the floor shift under him to move his legs out of the doorway before he heard the door slam shut. He couldn't see it though, his face to the ground and his vision having been temporarily blinded by the hit.

Dean saw Castiel get shot, saw the TARDIS pull him inside before slamming its door shut against the continuous fire from the Host. He'd almost followed right after Cas when he went out into the open, but luckily he had stayed around the corner they had been behind and was able to duck his head out of they way when they first tried to shoot at Castiel, several of their shots hitting the wall he was behind or passing close to where his head had been. Now that he'd had a moment to think and to get a sense of what the Host were like (they seemed to be ignoring the passengers now, turning away from them and leaving them huddled in fear on the edges of the deck) he determined that the best plan of attack was to just start shooting, staying where he was and using the wall for cover if they decided to retaliate. Considering the fact that they seemed to be entirely focused on the TARDIS and based on what little Cas had told him about the robots, he was pretty sure he'd be able to pick them off without too much danger to himself. Regardless, there was no way he was taking one of them shooting Cas lying down. He knew that Castiel couldn't die, but that didn't change the principle of the thing, not to mention that the shot had managed to make him collapse, and there was no way for Dean to know the extent of any damage from where he was. He hoped that Cas was alright, but the only way to be sure was to clear out the Host so that he could get to the TARDIS himself and help Cas do whatever he needed to to help Balthazar fix whatever had fucked up.

He knew which Host had landed the hit on Cas, so he shot that one first; he hit the four to the right in quick succession before pulling back behind the corner briefly, then peeked around and shot several more. Once he was sure that they were remaining focused on the TARDIS and wouldn't start shooting at him he stopped repeatedly hiding behind the corner and just picked them off one after the other, counting shots in his head. When he was down to two (with not even half of them down) he pulled back, patting his pockets while trying to remember where he had stashed the spare magazine – he was regretting only having one spare, but it had been hard enough to hide the one and he had been in a bit of a rush. He tried to think about what he could do with the shots he had, if there was a way to make it to the TARDIS without getting shot himself, when he felt movement behind him.

He turned around to see four host standing two by two, their hands together in front of their chests as if in prayer. He didn't have a chance to raise his gun before one opened its mouth and spoke.

“Request. Cease all hostile action.”

The mouth of the one beside it opened. “Information. We are aware that you are the companion of a Soldier. You are now our hostage.”

“Oh hell no,” Dean said, raising his arm and taking down the two Host that stood in the front. He saw the two standing behind starting to raise their arms and his mind raced, knowing he wouldn't be able to reload his gun in time.

He pulled a knife out of one of his pockets and stepped forward quickly, stabbing one Host swiftly in the chest and pulling the knife back out before doing the same to the last one a moment later. Standing with the immobile bodies of four Host at his feet he looked around, but he couldn't see any others so he backed himself against the wall and kept a lookout as he located the magazine he had been searching for and loaded it into his gun, still trying to come up with a plan to get into the TARDIS and help Cas.

He almost jumped when one of the Host at his feet started talking. He pointed his gun at it, but it was otherwise still – he must have missed the circuitry that controlled their voice.

“Information. The goal of the Soldiers is not pure. They are a danger to the multi-verse.”

Dean didn't fully understand what it was talking about, and he snorted.

“Advisory. Do not trust a Soldier.”

If Dean hadn't been short on bullets he probably would have shot the robot again to shut it up. He didn't know much about the Host but Cas had said that they were evil, and he trusted Cas. Which surprised him somewhat when he realized it, but it made sense: they'd been traveling and working together for some time now, and it was only natural to build trust doing what they did. That wasn't going to change just because a hunk of junk in a dress said that he shouldn't. The Host and the Soldiers were enemies apparently, it was only natural for them to think of the other as untrustworthy.

He watched it for another few moments to make sure that it wouldn't start moving, then inched back to the corner and took stock of the situation around the TARDIS. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered when he realized what was happening. Most of the Host were still shooting at the TARDIS, though their lasers didn't seem to be affecting it or leaving any marks; what was alarming Dean was that a couple of the Host were bent over some of the fallen ones and seemed to be repairing them. This hypothesis was affirmed when Dean saw one of the Host rise and join the others, the Host that had fixed it moving on to the next one that was down.

-x-

Castiel could feel his systems working at countering the effects of the hit, and after several moments he felt the ship reach out to him, sparking activity in the areas of his brain that had been affected by the shot, bringing their activity back; his vision returned, and while he was still in pain he regained the use and control of his muscles. He took what help he could get – his ship was likely saving up for the coming power drain of reversing the Rift.

He pulled himself to his feet slowly, every movement causing his wings to move or muscles in or near them to contract and send a shock of pain to his brain. It would be slow to heal, of that much Castiel was certain.

He reached the controls, leaning on them heavily as he activated several programs. As they ran he checked several screens. One of them showed that more Host were coming through the Rift, albeit slowly. His eyes passed briefly over another before snapping back, looking again. It was showing a view outside his ship, and he could see Dean peaking around the corner where he had left him, gun in hand, looking at the Host, many of whom Castiel could see were down – Dean must have shot them, but why Castiel didn't know. He saw Dean's eyes watching the medic Host fixing one of the fallen, and knew that he had to act fast before Dean shot one of them. Attacking a medic would definitely cause the Host to turn on Dean. He started to configure his ship for reversing the direction of the Rift, his actions more urgent and rushed now, hoping for all their sakes that Balthazar hadn't started without him.

Balthazar. He'd never thought he'd get to see another Soldier again, and now he was helping to make sure that he'd never get another chance...

Castiel shook his head slightly as he continued to work. This was his duty. His loyalty was with the Lord, first and foremost. Everything else came second. No, Dean came second, everything else came third.

Everything happened quickly after that. The two ships combined their power on the same frequency, overpowered whatever the Host had on the other side of the Rift, and reversed its direction. The Host were pulled off the ship (they started to shoot people with their electrolasers once they realized what was happening; there were many bodies on the deck now, but more people were alive than there would have been had the Host remained) and back in. Once he had ascertained that all the Host were gone Castiel saw an opportunity and sealed the Rift from their side, blocking the Host – or anyone else – from using it. There had been enough damage to this fixed point.

Soon afterwards he saw Balthazar's ship leave, and the light that indicated the presence of another capsule finally went out. Cas felt a heavy weight in his gut, but no thoughts went through his head at the sight. Nothing but acceptance.

Dean slammed the doors of the ship open as Castiel was starting the takeoff sequence. 

Dean saw the chaotic view outside fade from one of the screens as they left the pocket. “We safe now?”

“Yes,” Castiel said, leaning on the console with both hands and his head hung. “The pocket is resolving.”

“That's good right that's supposed to happen?” he paused. “But it'll take that Balthazar guy with it.”

Castiel nodded.

“If I'm honest Cas from what little I saw he seemed like a dick, I don't think the multi-verse is losing much-”

“He's the last one!” Castiel said loudly, head snapping up to meet Dean's eyes. “Besides me, he's the last Soldier. Even this shouldn't have happened, I don't know how that universe escaped the effects-” he breathed out slowly through his nose. “It doesn't matter, I couldn't have done anything.” Dean wasn't sure if Castiel was talking to himself or to Dean.

Castiel set the ship up to remain in the Void for a while, not ready to move on to another universe just yet. Dean picked up on this almost immediately – he hadn't yet learned about all the controls but he knew more or less the steps Castiel went through for certain things.

“What's up Cas why aren't we going to another universe? It's still early-”

“I told you to stay hidden.”

It took Dean a moment to figure out what Cas was referring to. Then he frowned. “They shot you, I wasn't just gonna-”

“And I cannot die, you had no reason to draw attention to yourself. If you had shot one of the medics you would have been dead in an instant. It was foolish to attack them in the first place, they were doing no harm to the ship.”

“I didn't like the idea that they hurt you okay? I saw you fall and it clearly did something to you,” he said, gesturing to Cas's right wing, which was still out and hanging limp, dragging on the floor. “And I was pissed. Lay off.”

“You need to think things through or you're going to get yourself killed, Dean.”

“Is that what this is about? I was careful I stayed around the corner, if I wasn't I would have just gone in guns blazing okay? I wasn't going to let myself get killed on the freaking Titanic,” Dean said, crossing his arms as he leaned against the railing, staring hard at Castiel.

Castiel considered Dean's words. Dean's mood had been improved in the past week or so, and when he thought back he could see that Dean was being more careful. He would still do almost anything to save lives, but he was being more considerate of his own safety. He decided to trust that Dean was getting better and wouldn't get himself killed without thinking. He nodded slightly. “Very well,” he said, looking away from Dean and down at the controls, which he started to manipulate for entering the next universe. “But if we face the Host again, don't try and fight them. It's too dangerous and I don't want you to get hurt.” _Die_. “Promise me.”

“Yeah, yeah sure Cas. I promise.”


	6. Chapter 6

“So what's up here?”

“People are dying that aren't supposed to,” Castiel replied, studying several monitors. Dean stepped beside him and looked over his shoulder to see that the screens were displaying the hospital records of several people. Dean skimmed each one – they had all been at risk but getting better before they died, with no signs of what changed to cause their deaths.

“You seeing any other connection besides sudden death? Any other info?”

Cas shook his head, pressing a button to scroll several more files onto one of the screens. More of the same. “They're happening within a short time frame – hours in between deaths, usually less. The universe won't survive very long at this rate, we'll have to work quickly.”

“Think it's an alien?” Dean asked, pulling Cas away from the screens and towards the wardrobe room so that he could change into a suit – there would definitely be some investigating and interrogating involved in this one.

“Yes, if it were a disease or any type of infection there would be some sign in the humans.”

“Well Cas I'm going to suit up, think you could have the TARDIS make up some CDC ID's for us?”

“The CDC no longer exists, but I will have it get something ready,” Cas said. “And dress all in black except for a plain white shirt, it's not an – individualistic time. And no tie.”

“Gotcha,” Dean said with a click of his tongue and a wink. “Be out in a few minutes.”

As Dean walked towards the centre of the wardrobe room, the rack spinning downwards to bring the suits to his level, he thought about the fact that he had never seen Castiel without his tie (which was backwards half the time, it was annoying), or in anything other than that suit of his for that matter. He had taken his trenchcoat off once, when they were on a cold alien planet and trying to help a native recover from being buried under a collapsed wall of snow for over an hour. The coat had magical properties or something because the guy was back to normal temperature (for his species, so still freaking cold) within a few minutes. Dean hadn't thought to ask about it at the time, they hadn't been travelling together all that long by that point and Dean's curiosity wasn't always as welcomed as it was now, but now he was curious again. He'd try and remember to ask later.

He did as Cas said, selecting a plain black suit and white shirt from the rack, changing quickly and fixing his hair a bit before throwing on a pair of dress shoes and going back out to the control room.

Cas had apparently already finished the landing sequence and was waiting by the doors for him, black wallets in hand supposedly containing their identification. Dean took the one Cas held out to him, flipping it open briefly to see who they were pretending to work for (and making sure Cas hadn't accidentally given him his ID instead – that had happened once, when they had been trying to get into a prison of all places) before pocketing it.

They had landed outside the hospital, a tall white building that was nondescript other than for a large green light in the shape of a crescent moon near the top whose light reached the ground and gave everything an odd shadow and tinge in the darkness of the night.

Dean noticed Cas stumble slightly from the corner of his eye. “You okay man?” he asked as Castiel straightened.

“Yes, I – no,” he frowned before he stepped back into the TARDIS, then stepped back out again. He continued to frown. “This universe is – unique. My time sense is impeded, the psychic laws, properties here are not the same as in the rest of the multi-verse.”

“Is it because of all the people dying?”

“No, we can't fix this, at least not yet. We may have to come back here once we fix the other problem and it normalizes.”

“Well then let's get working. Come on,” Dean replied, glancing around and locating an entrance to the hospital.

The further they walked from the TARDIS the worse Castiel's head began to hurt, and it was a strange, foreign feeling to him. He concentrated on his surroundings instead, feeling slightly vulnerable as his connection with the TARDIS and the Lord weakened as they distanced themselves from the ship.

The lobby of the hospital was sparsely decorated with only a couple of statues and plain white walls, as was customary in the time period they were in. He saw Dean study the statue that stood only about a dozen feet from the entrance for a moment before muttering “Dude, you fugly,” and then Castiel was motioning for Dean to accompany him to the reception desk.

They showed their badges and got the ward where the strange deaths had been occurring, and after getting the floor numbers (Castiel explained that space in this city was short, so everything was built upwards – wards consisted of several floors instead of wings as Dean was used to) they walked over to the elevators.

They agreed when they reached the floor that Castiel would speak with some of the doctors, and Dean would see what additional information he could get on the patients through the receptionist and computer database.

-x-

“Alright well thanks for your time,” Dean said before walking away from the floor's reception desk, Castiel joining him after quickly finishing a conversation with one of the doctors. “Anything?” Dean asked quietly as they walked down the hall towards the empty waiting area.

“Nothing from the doctors, but I did feel a – presence, for a few moments when I was speaking to the last one.”

“A presence, like-?”

“A consciousness of some sort,” Castiel explained. “It was on the floor above us, but that's all I could tell. Let's go.”

They quickly located an elevator bay, but had to wait for the third one available because of space. Once the doors opened Cas was out and walking down the hall at a quick pace and with a purpose, eyes shifting back and forth to look in the rooms on both sides of the hallway. Dean, having not expected it, jogged several paces to catch up with him.

“Dude slow down, you're gonna freak people out,” Dean said as they dodged around a doctor speaking with two ladies in the middle of the hallway,

Cas stopped walking abruptly. “Forgive me,” he said, looking around again. “There's no more trace of it, and I didn't get a fix on its location before it disappeared.”

“Hey it's fine, at least we got some kind of lead,” Dean said, pulling Cas aside to make room for a gurney and the accompanying doctors to pass by. “Let's just hang up here for awhile, see if we can find anything, and maybe the mystery presence will show up again in a bit.”

“Perhaps,” Castiel said after a beat, nodding in agreement.

All they found was more of the same, with one addition: a patient had died only a few minutes before Dean and Cas had arrived on the floor, and they guessed it had happened at the same time that Castiel sensed the consciousness.

“So any ideas?” Dean asked Cas once they were standing alone.

Castiel was frowning. “telepathic beings cannot cause a signless death, there would be noticeable changes to the brain chemistry that would be picked up in autopsy,” he said. “And they cannot hide their presence, so it may be something that only gives off a psychic aura.”

“So we got nothing.”

“We should split up, we'll have more chance of finding something that way.”

“Yeah sure, sounds good.”

Castiel went down the hallway back in the direction of the elevator bay, while Dean continued in the other direction, where there were more rooms. He did his best to keep out of the way, to watch where the staff went and try to avoid having them notice he was hanging around suspiciously, not staying near any one room too long.

Dean didn't know how long he had been up there when he finally caught something. He was looking through the glass into a dark room, wondering what was in there, when he saw something odd in the reflection of the room directly behind him, which also had a large glass window looking in. There were two patients, both alone and lying down with their eyes closed, supposedly asleep, but then Dean saw black smoke come out of one of their mouths, hover above the body, and then shoot over and enter the other person.

A demon.

Within moments there were doctors pouring into the room, surrounding the person that the demon had left. Dean looked down the hallway for Cas, but couldn't see him.

He waited outside the room for some time, until finally the body was cleared out and the room empty save for the one remaining patient. He waited until no one was looking then entered the room silently, lowering and tilting the blinds on the window looking out into the hallway before approaching the patient. He was a middle-aged man, a little heavy with fully gray hair.

Dean was currently thankful he had taken the time to finally memorize the exorcism spell. He got only a few words in - “Regna terrae, cantate” - before the man opened his eyes, solid black.

He turned his head towards Dean, giving him a small smile before blinking and returning his eyes back to normal. “What have we here?” he said, voice only just above a whisper, but somehow it carried as if he had spoken at normal volume.

“You're the one causing people to die,” Dean said.

The man breathed a single chuckle. “I'm surprised you found me. Lucky break, that. Still can't stop me though.”

“Wanna bet you son of a bitch? Exorcizamus-” he started again, wondering if a different exorcism chant would work (the TARDIS's library had some great resources), but got cut off.

“That won't work hon, even on me,” he said with a shake of his head, looking up at the ceiling. He looked over at Dean again, eyes black once more. “But you're welcome to try, if you wish.”

Dean frowned but continued to recite the words he had memorized. He got a quarter of the way through before he decided it was having no effect and was a waste of time. But now he was confused.

“Satisfied?” the demon asked, looking bored. Dean glared at him. “Now now, be nice, I'm on my death bed.”

“How are you killing these people?” Dean asked, hoping it might give him a clue as to what the heck was up with this demon.

“Well you see sweet cheeks, I'm sick too,” the demon said with a grin. “But demons like myself can feed off someone's remaining time – the amount of functioning time their soul has left, if you will – for healing energy. I'm too weak to possess and feed off anyone with a significant amount of time left – too exhausting, it defeats the purpose – but by feeding off the remaining time of these poor souls who don't have much – weeks, at most – I'm getting better. Stronger.” All of a sudden he shot out a hand, leaning out of the bed slightly to grab Dean's wrist. He only had a hold on it for less than a moment before Dean shook him off, but apparently it was enough. “Dean Winchester, nice name, might use it myself once I'm out of here. Not from around here though, are you?”

Dean's eyes were widened slightly in confusion. “The hell?”

“That friend of yours – so rude, you got away before I could get his name, you simply must introduce us – explained that this universe has different psychic laws, yes? That should clear up any confusion for you,” the demon explained, going to raise its arms to put behind his head, but the IV's caught and he scowled down at his arms, placing them back at his sides.

Dean let this sink in for a moment before speaking. “Sorry pal, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm not going to let you kill any more people.”

“And how do you plan to stop me?” the demon asked, looking over at Dean and raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“How 'bout I start by asking nicely. Get out of him.”

“Very well,” the demon said. He closed his eyes and his head lolled to the side before his mouth opened, black smoke pouring slowly out before it hovered above his face.

Then it zoomed right for Dean.

-x-

Meanwhile Castiel had been stopping to stand outside every room, trying to feel for the consciousness he had sensed while on the floor below. He thought it was only proving difficult because of his headache, but then he felt a brief flash of it again, and he could tell was that it was in Dean's end of the hallway; but before he could get anything more from it it disappeared once again. Cas frowned as he began to walk back down the hall, paying the people in his path no mind. He figured it must be some property of this universe causing it, because normally nothing could hide its presence, even temporarily. Telepathic beings could always sense other telepathic beings that were nearby, it was just how it was – or, usually was.

He was stopped partway down the hallway by one of the doctors he had spoken to on the floor below, asking him about whether he would like the autopsy results of the patients once they were available. He stared blankly back at her for a moment before saying that that was his partner's domain, and that he was on the next floor up. She continued to pester him a bit, wondering if he needed any help with locating documents or patient files, but he was able to brush her off eventually.

His headache certainly wasn't getting any better.

It had been several minutes now since Castiel had last sensed the consciousness, and he still hadn't found Dean. Then he sensed it again, and it was close. He backtracked to the last door he had passed and swept into the room, closing the door quickly behind him. He knew that a scene would not be a good thing.

In the room were three beds, two of which were empty; Dean was standing beside the one occupied bed, his back to Castiel. Castiel took several steps to approach Dean, who was looking down at the man lying on the bed, either asleep or unconscious.

Dean looked up and turned his head slowly at the sound of Castiel's footsteps, and Castiel could immediately tell that something was wrong.

“Dean?” Castiel said, narrowing his eyes slightly in puzzlement, stopping his approach several feet away.

Dean grinned a grin Castiel had never seen, and blinked – black eyes? A demon. “Well look at you,” he said, accent not Dean's own.

Castiel was full on frowning now. “His belief in the anti-possession symbol should not allow you entrance,” he stated.

The demon blinked again, his eyes returning to Dean's, and turned his body fully to face Castiel. “Well he believes in it all right, excessively so – humans,” he said with a shake of his head. “You would think that that much blind faith would protect him, but that's just one of the many wonderful properties of this universe. No amount of mental hardiness can protect non-telepaths from possession. It makes everything so, so easy,” the demon said with a breathy air of condescension.

Castiel remained silent, but began to poke and prod the situation with what he had of his time sense (which wasn't much), looking for a solution as the demon continued to speak.

“But enough about him, let's talk about you, Castiel.”

“How – how do you know my name?” Castiel said, immediately more guarded than before.

“Amongst this universe's many problems are thin edges,” the demon explained, still looking indifferent but voice growing louder, stronger. “The walls are transparent enough that we can see the goings-on of other universes, when we feel like it anyway. Usually just for entertainment purposes and all, but it can be educational as well. Your kind had so many wonderful ideas before they were wiped out. How did that go down exactly by the way? I wasn't watching at the time, but I've heard some rumors. Some very interesting rumors on how all but one of the guardians of the multi-verse was wiped out in a single moment. Care to enlighten me?”

Castiel couldn't help but clench his jaw at the last comment, but the demon had given away a crucial detail. “You are feeding off his soul to build your own strength.”

“Got it in one,” the demon said with a smile. “I was sticking to sicklings, but this boy's time-”

He was cut off when Castiel stormed towards him faster than he could see, pushing him up against the wall, hand on his neck. “Release him,” Castiel growled out, their faces inches apart.

“Make me,” the demon said with a confident smirk.

Castiel knew why he was smirking, why he felt so confident, but he also knew that despite his own reservations he had no choice. This was Dean's life, his soul on the line, and Castiel didn't have to think twice. He raised his hands and placed his fingers to Dean's temples, closing his eyes in concentration.

It was overwhelming, at first, being inside Dean's head. He was everywhere at once but unable to concentrate on anything, surrounded by every facet of Dean's mind. It was difficult for him to focus, to collect his own consciousness into one location and presence – the universe's properties weakened his telepathic powers, making the process more strenuous than it usually was.

Once Castiel had collected himself he checked quickly to ensure that his entrance hadn't caused any damage – he was glad to see that it hadn't, nor could he see any obvious damage from the demon's invasion. Reminded of why he was in Dean's mind, he began to search carefully for the demon.

What should have been a simple search was made more difficult by Dean's narrow neural pathways – a trait of all humans and most other non-telepathic species, as their brains had few to no adaptations for the experience. As Castiel moved around and searched through Dean's mind he couldn't help but see some things, feel past emotions, catch sight of flashes of memories. It made Castiel uncomfortable, the invasion of someone's mind without their permission considered to be illegal and a taboo by his race, but he knew he had no choice and there were more urgent matters at hand than his own discomfort.

The demon found Castiel before Castiel managed to track it down, but its location remained hidden as it spoke. “Naughty naughty Soldier, coming into your dear Dean's head without his permission, it's disgusting.”

“You're no different,” Castiel growled as he tried to get a fix on the demon's position.

“Well I'd say it's pretty different, considering his mind is full of you. You'd have to be blind to miss it. Though you both seem to be, blind, that is,” he said with a slight chuckle. “But that ship of yours, that is fascinating. All that power-”

And then Castiel found the demon, nestled in a group of memories – he tried not to look as he surrounded the demon, dislodging it from where it had seeded itself and grasped at Dean's mind, but it was impossible to avoid. As Castiel poked and pried at the demon, pulling away everything it was trying to hold on to and returning the memories to their rightful places, he saw them, and he hated himself for it.

Once he had gathered every last bit of the demon, had it surrounded and secured by his own consciousness, he pulled out of Dean's mind, bringing the demon along with him.

As Castiel removed his fingers from Dean's temples he could feel the strain of the connection breaking like a punch to the gut, his headache returning with full force. He managed to catch Dean before he crumpled to the ground, unconscious. Having been fed on as he had, he would remain unconscious until the time that had been eaten had passed – Castiel could only hope that the demon hadn't been in him long and hadn't eaten too much of his time. Regardless he swiftly activated a perception filter over him and Dean before hefting Dean up into his arms and making his way towards the door of the room. He didn't want to risk teleporting to his ship with the psychic laws as they were, and especially not with a passenger in tow – he didn't know what side effects teleporting could have on humans.

As he walked he could feel the presence of the demon in his mind, buzzing about like a trapped fly. Castiel was able to keep it contained, to stop it from seeing anything in his mind – but he could still hear what the demon was saying, even as he did his best to ignore it. As a Soldier he had infinite time which could not be fed on by even the most powerful of creatures, and certainly not by a detached consciousness that was close to death. It was only a matter of time until it lost its remaining energy and disappeared, but until then he had to endure its nattering, and he soon found himself grinding his teeth in annoyance at every phrase.

“You saved him, but he saved you too, didn't he?”

“You looked, you looked while you were in his head, you naughty thing you. But you liked it, you liked what you saw, and doesn't that make you feel absolutely horrible?”

At a lack of response from Castiel, “Oh you do like him, don't you?”

If it had been possible to give the demon a painful death, Castiel would have. As it was he managed to make it out of the hospital without bumping into anyone – something of a feat, since he had had to account for Dean's stray limbs – and soon brought them both back to the TARDIS. Once inside he set Dean down on the bench with a sigh of relief, and couldn't help but be reminded of when they had met for the first time, when he had rescued Dean's soul from hell what seemed like forever ago.

The demon's dialogue was still going strong over Castiel's reminiscent thoughts.

“You don't want to think about it, not something your kind ever did was it? Not with non-Soldiers, and certainly not with a non-telepathic being.”

“You're attached, so so attached, you realize that?”

Castiel began the takeoff sequence, hoping that once they were completely out of this universe that the demon would be further weakened and would die sooner.

Once out of the universe he let the TARDIS remain suspended in the Void, not wanting to do anything until he was assured that Dean was alright, and ideally after Dean had woken up. He remembered a conversation they had had some time after Dean's arrival, when they had discussed Castiel's lack of sleep. He had felt a prick of that conversation when he was in Dean's head, he couldn't help it – but it had told him that Dean didn't want him going into universes without him. Not that Castiel would, now, and he doubted he'd be able to concentrate either way with Dean's status unknown to him.

He transported Dean to the medical bay, running a quick diagnostic on him – it couldn't tell him how much time had been eaten, but it did ease his mind to see that the possession had had no ill effects on his physical form.

“Worried about him, were you? Afraid I'd damaged him beyond repair?”

Castiel snapped the screen back into place against the wall with more force than necessary and gazed down at Dean, unblinking, trying to reign in his anger at the voice that just wouldn't go away. Normally nothing anyone said could get under his skin like this – other than Dean when they had first started to travel together, but Dean was a special case.

And that was the whole thing, Castiel realized as he concentrated on the slow rise and fall of Dean's chest under the suit. Dean had gone from a job, to a charge and a nuisance, to an extra pair of hands, to someone Castiel trusted as much as he trusted the Lord's guidance. Castiel could hardly imagine living without him now, their rhythm and routine such a part of his life. How had he gotten on alone for so long?

Castiel realized that the voice of the demon was gone, that it had finally run out of energy and had disappeared. But the effects of its comments lingered, and Castiel wasn't sure if he liked what was going on inside his head.

-x-

Dean woke up just shy of twelve hours later. Castiel had chosen to keep Dean in the medical bay; not having been witness to a soul feeding before he didn't know whether conditions could change during recovery, and he wanted to play it safe. The TARDIS had created a chair for him and he had placed it on the other side of the small room from Dean, hands holding his chin and covering his mouth slightly as he stared at Dean's unconscious form until he woke up, thinking through the events of the day, as well as many past events.

It was a relief, in more ways than one, when he finally woke.

“I feel like one of those huge-ass train-car things from the orange planet rolled over my head,” Dean said, pushing his arms as if to sit up but then changing his mind. “What happened?”

Castiel was glad that Dean was no longer disturbed by being watched while he slept. “You were possessed. By a demon.”

“Yeah I remember the demon, how the hell did it possess me though? Shouldn't my anti-possession tattoo have stopped it?”

“The properties of the universe negated your tattoo's effects,” Castiel explained, standing. “I managed to find you and – dispose of the demon,” he said as he pulled out a screen to make sure that Dean's vitals were all fine. His brain activity had picked up (understandably) and there was some slight swelling of the pineal gland, which was likely what was causing his headache, but he was otherwise fine.

“Does getting possessed always feel like this? Because it sucks.”

Castiel debated for a moment on whether to fill Dean in completely on what had happened. He still felt guilty about intruding on Dean's mind, and he didn't know if Dean would remember that.

“Cas?” Dean asked. Apparently Castiel was taking too long to decide.

“The demon consumed several hours worth of your remaining time from your soul, which caused you to fall unconscious. Your brain has been affected, but it should recover and return to normal soon. I managed to remove the demon before it caused any serious damage.”

Dean was silent for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. “Thanks,” he said, not looking at Castiel.

“You're welcome,” Castiel said before helping Dean sit up and get to his room to sleep off the inflammation.

He was careful not to put his hands anywhere near Dean's head.


	7. Chapter 7

“This isn't supposed to happen.”

“No shit.”

They were standing outside a bar, on Earth in 1955, looking down at a dead body that lay at their feet.

A dead body that looked exactly like Dean.

They were in a universe that didn't have – or rather, hadn't had – any problems, and Dean had wanted to go out for a few drinks and a round of pool before he went to sleep. He had been explaining the game to Cas in between turns when one of the other men had started to accuse Dean of cheating. Luckily the bartender had intervened before more than a few punches had been thrown and kicked the other men out, which had unfortunately left Dean with no winnings. They still had some money left from what the TARDIS had given them, however, so they had a few more beers (Castiel only at Dean's insistence, despite his immunity to the effects) before Dean decided to call it a night. But then when they'd exited the bar they'd found the body not far from the door.

“That's me.”

“They're called doppelgangers.”

“Whatever! You think those guys from before did this?” he asked, looking down the street in both directions but finding it empty.

“Most likely,” Castiel said, bending down to feel for a pulse. It was pretty obvious he was dead, though, since his head was cut open and he had a stab wound to his stomach. Castiel looked up at Dean. “We need to move him before anyone sees.”

“Take him back to the TARDIS?”

Castiel nodded before picking up the body and standing up. “We can come up with a plan once we're there.”

Inside the TARDIS they took doppelganger-Dean to the medical bay, Castiel placing him on the table before he straightened, closing his eyes.

“What're you seeing Cas?”

“There's a battle, it's going to take place in a few days, he has to be there.”

“Well unless you can pull some hocus-pocus to bring him back from the dead I don't think that's happening.”

“Yes thank you Dean, I realize,” Castiel replied, shooting Dean an unimpressed look. After a moment he said, “His soul is already gone, I can't make another body for him.” Another pause. “Our only option is to have you take his place.”

“What are you crazy? I can't do that!”

“He needs to be there Dean.”

“Yeah and after that he'll have to be somewhere else too, this isn't going to work, I can't stay here and live out this guy's life!”

“It would only be for a few days, he will no longer be needed after the battle. His disappearance won't affect the universe after that.”

“You're sure about this?”

“Yes."

“But I don't know anything about being a – whatever his job is.”

“He's a Colonel, the commander of a medical regiment in the army.”

“Shit I dunno Cas, I can bullshit my way through questioning doctors sure but I think this might be a little over my head?”

“I can – guide you through everything you'll have to say and do,” Castiel said slowly. “I'll have to stay here to be close to the Eye of Harmony, but I'll be able to direct you telepathically.”

“The mind thing?”

“Yes 'the mind thing,'” Castiel said, exasperation in his tone. A side effect that had come to light after the incident with the demon was that Castiel and Dean were able to communicate with each other telepathically – something which had not gone over well with Dean, though it had proved useful on several occasions. Once Castiel had explained more about the telepathic nature of many species in the multi-verse – including Soldiers – and allowed Dean to do some of his own research things had gotten better; after gaining a better understanding of it he had become more open to its use, but was still adamant that they only use the connection in emergencies, and that Castiel only “look” for thoughts that Dean was directing at him – which he would have done regardless, but Dean wasn't aware of all the social issues related to telepathic communications.

Dean breathed out heavily. “I don't like it, but okay. And you're sure it's only for a couple of days?”

“Yes, Dean,” Castiel said heavily, turning to one of the computers and directing it to store the body. At a look from Dean he said, “We can worry about it later, right now we need to find where he lives so that he's missing for as short a time as possible.”

Dean nodded and followed Cas back out into the control room. “Will the TARDIS know where to go?”

“She should,” Castiel said with a nod, throwing a few levers before Dean heard the dematerialization sound. Once the sound stopped Castiel said, “We're in his room on the military base.” He left the controls and Dean followed him to the door.

They stepped out of the TARDIS and into a medium-sized, sparsely decorated room. There was a bed, neatly made with hospital corners and without a crease in sight; a small desk covered with several piles of paperwork and a couple of folded maps; and a desk chair. Along the wall by the door was a doorless closet, and there was an open doorway on the wall perpendicular to it led into a bathroom that was just as minimalist. In the closet they could see several uniforms hung up, neatly pressed and medals shining, hangars evenly spaced.

All in all, nothing was out of place except for the TARDIS and the two of them.

“Anal bastards, I can already tell this is gonna suck,” Dean said after a moment.

As Dean went through the room, looking in drawers, reading the paperwork, he asked Cas to tell him stuff about his doppelganger and what he could expect the next day (even if Cas would be guiding him along he still didn't want to go into it blind – he wanted to be able to wing it in a pinch). Castiel explained the role of a colonel, went over the hierarchy of those he commanded, and what he could see about the battle that was coming up. They were to try and take control of one of the strategically advantageous hills north of 38th parallel north (it was at this point that Dean found out they were in Korea in 1951, the location not having come up when they exited the TARDIS and headed straight into the bar they had landed beside; the bar was apparently for the off-duty American soldiers). Castiel went on to say that the line they would be advancing from was not far from the temporary military base, where they were now.

At that point they both agreed that Dean should sleep so that he wouldn't be exhausted the next morning. He wondered aloud if he could sleep on the TARDIS and have Cas just bring it to the next morning once he woke up naturally, but Castiel said it was necessary for him to sleep in the room that night (because of a mosquito no less). Dean fetched some clothes from his room for sleeping regardless, not liking the looks of doppelganger Dean's pajamas.

The next morning Dean was woken up – and without even opening his eyes he knew that it was an ungodly hour and cursed the universe – by a clock on the window ledge above and beside the bed, apparently set by doppelganger Dean.

Cas was seated in the desk chair, turned towards Dean's bed, watching Dean as he woke up, instantly alert in the new location. Having spent so much time on the TARDIS clearly hadn't dampened his instincts when sleeping in an unfamiliar location.

Dean showered and dressed in the room's adjoining bathroom before he had to head down to the mess hall for breakfast. He and Cas bid each other goodbye, the latter entering the TARDIS and closing the door behind him. Once Dean was outside the door of his room and had locked it behind him with a key he had retrieved from doppelganger Dean's pocket he felt Castiel's presence in his mind, giving him directions to the mess hall.

Dean and Castiel hadn't used the link much – it still creeped Dean out a bit, if he were to be honest, even though he no longer directly opposed its use – and they certainly had never used it for any sort of extended conversation, so it took Dean some time to be able to reply to what Cas was telling him without speaking out loud. Luckily he didn't run into anyone on his way to the mess hall. He was finally managing by the time he was outside the tent that Castiel said was the mess hall, but Dean would have known without being told – he had been able to smell the food from several tents away. He pushed his way under the tent flap, trying to take everything in but not look like he was seeing the place for the first time. He walked forward as Castiel told him, heading towards the far wall where the food was being served.

He was surprised when people started to salute him as he passed them, but quickly followed Castiel's instructions to salute back. He joined the line Castiel told him to (the shorter one for the officers – nice) and then sat at the table Castiel indicated with a mental picture, where a couple of other people (both lieutenant-colonels, Castiel informed him; one was his second-in-command, Benny, and the other was in charge of one of the medical battalions, last name Fuiller) were already seated. Dean sat in one of the seats across from them as instructed.

The two men greeted Dean as Colonel Winchester before returning to their meals, eating quickly – apparently time wasn't a luxury here, but with a battle to prepare for the next day Dean wasn't completely surprised. He nodded in return and then lowered his head to his own meal.

Benny and Fuiller finished at the same time a few minutes later, getting up together to leave. Fuiller nodded at Dean when he looked up, and Benny said something about seeing him after his meeting to discuss the setup of the collection station before they left to put their dishes away.

Dean finished his own food several minutes after their departure, and took his tray in the direction he had watched Benny and Fuiller go in with their own trays. As Dean was putting away his dishes Castiel spoke to him. 'You have a meeting with the man ahead of you, follow him out of the tent.'

Dean nodded before remembering that Castiel was back on the TARDIS and couldn't see him – or maybe he could, he didn't know exactly nor fully understand how Cas's time sense or the telepathic thing worked on the Soldier's end – and did what he had been told.

The officer Dean had been following turned and spotted Dean and smiled in greeting, immediately striking up a conversation about the plans for the coming battle. Dean took a couple of quick steps to catch up with the man and walk beside him, replying with the responses Castiel gave him. Their conversation was constantly being interrupted by passing men who saluted them, and they had to pause their conversation while they saluted back. This served Dean well, however, allowing him to hear Cas's full response and diminishing the delay caused by Cas's time sense and the information relay. Dean could tell it that it was going to be a long day, proceeding like this.

After walking by many rows of tents they arrived at their destination, entering a tent that acted as a small meeting room, a large table in the centre of the tent and wooden chairs surrounding it. There were already three men in the tent, all standing, speaking together quietly. They looked over at the door when Dean and the other man entered, gesturing them over to join the conversation. But before they could be filled in another man entered the room, and apparently that was everyone because at that point everyone sat down, the last man closing the tent flap behind him before taking a seat as well.

Dean saw that there was a map laid out on the table, marks drawn and markers placed in what appeared to be a scattered pattern but were in fact meticulously placed. The whole meeting ended up being little more than a parrot session for him, though he picked up on the situation and plan as they went along. Luckily the men were fond of interrupting, offering ideas or criticizing the current plan, so Dean's speech difficulty seemed to go unnoticed.

The meeting seemed to go on forever (though in reality it lasted only slightly under two hours), and eventually Dean tuned out slightly, saying the lines Cas told him on autopilot. He was relieved when everyone finally agreed on all aspects of the plan and dispersed to take care of whatever they had to do.

Dean followed Castiel's instructions to what was apparently his office – a large tent, unnecessarily large in Dean's opinion, with an oversized wooden desk and a chair behind it that was underwhelming in comparison – for some paperwork before Benny poked his head in through the open tent flap and walked in without waiting for a sign from Dean, zipping the flap closed behind him. He did salute, however, and Castiel told Dean to smile and laugh at him, which Benny mirrored before seating himself in the chair on the other side of the desk from Dean.

They discussed the layout and location of the collection stations – for wounded soldiers, Dean realized after a few minutes – before moving on to other battle preparation topics, like the hospital's supplies, delegating the inspection of the litter jeeps (for transporting injured soldiers away from the battle and to the hospital), as well as filling Benny in on some of the changes to the battle plan that had been discussed during the earlier meeting. It had become clear to Dean very quickly that doppelganger-him and Benny were very good friends, and he allowed himself to relax as he said the lines Castiel gave him. All in all things were easier than he'd thought they'd be, though he was getting a little tired of Castiel having to direct his every action. They'd moved past the point of Castiel trying to order Dean around long ago, but Dean couldn't help the odd memory or flash of annoyance that crossed his mind. He liked being in charge, and while he was technically in charge of lots of people it didn't feel like it since he was only just now scrambling together an idea of what was going on. He was leading them blind, and he didn't like it. But there was nothing he could do about it, at least for now.

Once he and Benny were done talking they returned to the mess hall tent for lunch, and Dean was extremely pleased to see pie on the desert table. However, upon taking a bite at the end of his meal he grimaced and pushed the plate away. That wasn't pie, that was horse shit. Benny laughed at him from across the table (a laid back conversation having replaced the combat business they had been discussing before), shaking his head and saying that apparently Dean never learned (which caused Dean to wonder what stupid shit doppelganger-him had gotten up to).

After they had both finished their meals (time being less of an issue in the afternoon apparently) they went their separate ways, Benny to do several of the tasks that had come up in their morning discussion and Dean back to his office for more paperwork and planning (and according to Cas to be available for questions from others as they went about preparing for the upcoming battle).

The afternoon dragged on, the monotony broken only by Benny popping into his office briefly a couple of times to provide updates or to double check something. A few other people stopped by, but none were as at ease – or put Dean as at ease – as Benny. Dean was thankful when Castiel informed him that it was time for him to leave for dinner, and that after that he would be able to return to his room, his duties done for the day.

Which was definitely the best news he had heard since waking up. His arm was getting tired from saluting people back, a definite downside of being a high-ranking officer. Then again, he supposed that the guys lower down probably also had a shit ton of saluting to do too since they had to salute whenever they passed someone above them, so there didn't really seem to be any winners.

When Dean got back to his room from the mess hall he walked across the room and straight into the TARDIS, surprising Castiel slightly, who only now moved himself out of the meditative trance he needed to be in to sense everything that Dean needed to do.

“Hey Cas,” Dean said, loosening his tie and unbuttoning the top button of his shirt.

“Hello Dean,” Castiel said, turning around. “You did well, the timeline is showing no further signs of damage, if everything goes well tomorrow the universe should be able to recover with minimal stress.”

“That's great, but now I'm tired as fuck so I'm gonna head to bed. There any mosquitoes that need to suck my blood out there, or can I sleep in here?”

Castiel was somewhat surprised that Dean was opting to sleep on the ship – though he supposed it did mean that Dean wouldn't have to make the bed again the following morning – and quickly checked to make sure no one would come to the room during the night to find him missing. Once satisfied that Dean wouldn't be needed anywhere until breakfast in the morning he answered, “I can't sense anything, you may sleep in here if you wish.”

“You gonna stay out here?” Dean asked as he walked across the room towards one of the hallways, passing by Cas who was at the controls, undoing his tie as he walked. Once the knot was undone he slid it out from under his collar in one smooth motion.

The TARDIS had shown no signs of problems or stress during the day, so Castiel figured he didn't need to do any repairs that evening. “I have nothing to fix tonight. I will come with you, if that's alright.”

“'Course it is, come on,” Dean said as Cas followed him down the hallway and to Dean's room. “You know that Kirkland guy really pissed me off in the meeting, what a jackass.”

“He did seem rather – merciless. But I that's how officers are, this is war.”

“Yeah but those are innocent people that are going to die and he didn't even care,” Dean said, unbuttoning his jacket and pulling it off, throwing it over a chair.

Castiel frowned at that. “The clothing has to be in good condition for tomorrow. Wrinkles are frowned upon.”

“He has two, I'll wear the other one tomorrow.”

Castiel shook his head. “The other one must remain in his room.”

“Fine. Gonna need some hangars though.” The TARDIS produced some on the desk. Once he'd hung up the jacket he spoke again. “I'm gonna shower now, you can stay in here or go do whatever.”

“I'll – wait here I think.”

“Cool,” Dean said, heading into his en-suite bathroom and closing the door.

As Dean showered, and after he had finished and hung up the rest of his uniform and climbed into bed, Castiel thought. He was surprised that the simple act of Dean coming straight into the TARDIS when he got in from dinner had made him so happy. Early on in their travels Dean would take every opportunity he could to sleep off the ship, but Castiel hadn't noticed until now that it hadn't happened for quite awhile. He wondered why, whether he had gotten tired of spending the night in stranger's beds – which seemed unlikely and he dropped the thought immediately after having it – or if he finally considered the TARDIS to be home and felt more comfortable sleeping there. Castiel knew that if he required sleep – and he was glad he didn't – he'd rather do it somewhere familiar, somewhere safe.

Castiel thought back to the hospital, seeing if there were any memories or thoughts he had come across while in Dean's mind that might give him an answer. He did his best to dwell on the experience as little as possible – it wasn't respectful – and when he found nothing he stopped thinking about them immediately.

Yes, definitely disrespectful.

Castiel kept himself steadfastly glued to his chair while Dean slept, watching over him and certainly not thinking about how much he wanted to explore the rest of Dean's mind, to have permission to look into every memory, every passing thought and emotion, to have Dean interact with his own mind in the same way.

-x-

Castiel woke a grumbling Dean the next morning, and Dean dressed in the same clothes as the day before – he'd wear them for breakfast before changing into his combat uniform right before they left for the front line.

Breakfast was uneventful, the mess hall no louder than was usual, perhaps a bit quieter due to the looming battle. After finishing their meal everyone returned to their rooms or temporary barracks to change into their combat gear; they would proceed to the site of the battle on foot.

To Dean's relief he was able to leave the organization of the troops to Benny as per Castiel's instructions. He was to proceed to the site of the battle ahead of everyone else with the lieutenant-colonels (save Benny) in one of the litter jeeps to analyze the conditions. They would get updates from the company stationed there, make any final changes to their plan of attack before everyone else arrived and brief them again if necessary before commencing the attack.

Dean ended up not having much to say from the medical side, and when he did need to speak he parroted what Castiel told him telepathically, as he had done the day before. If the other officers noticed the hesitation that always preceded Dean's speech they didn't comment, likely too preoccupied with the coming battle.

When the troops arrived the few small changes were relayed by the lieutenant-colonels to the battalion captains, and within minutes everyone was preparing for battle. As Dean overlooked everyone (not sure what he was looking for, but Castiel told him to simply observe everything) Castiel informed him of doppelganger-Dean and Benny's habit of working together to treat soldiers on the battlefield. Dean nodded once before catching himself.

Before Dean knew it the battle had started; the artillery firing, the infantry advancing out of the existing trenches at calculated intervals and advancing towards the enemy line. Within moments there were injured men, and Benny and Dean and the aid men proceeded out of the trenches themselves to treat and retrieve the wounded.

Dean didn't know how long the battle went on, him and Benny moving from soldier to soldier in a blur, carrying them back to the aid station behind their line before heading right back out again. The injuries varied, from simple bullet wounds to torn or missing limbs to shock. Used to the blood and gore that went along with hunting Dean was able to deal with the scenes fairly easily and treat everyone with guidance from Castiel where necessary (bullet wounds were definitely not something new to Dean), working well with Benny to get everything done.

As Dean was sealing a soldier's wound Castiel all of a sudden got a flash of the future – which was strange because he wasn't searching for it, all his concentration on the nows that Dean had to follow. But all of that left his mind as he watched the scene that was passing through his head.

It was short, only a few seconds long. Dean and Benny were back in the battlefield, further up the line than they were now, bent over an injured man – Castiel couldn't see his injury, but there was a lot of blood on the ground surrounding him. Then something fell from the sky right onto them. A grenade.

Castiel was out of his trance in an instant. That explained why there were no other qualifiers for keeping the universe stable after the battle – Dean's doppelganger was meant to die. He berated himself for not looking into the why – it made so much sense now – as his mind raced for what to do. He couldn't let Dean die, that was an option he wouldn't even consider. But they would need a body to recover, otherwise he would be marked as missing and that wasn't supposed to happen.

Then Castiel remembered that they had a body, that they hadn't yet disposed of Dean's doppelganger. A plan quickly formed in Castiel's mind. He'd replace Dean with the doppelganger's body at the last moment before the grenade was meant to hit.

He curtly instructed Dean to follow Benny's lead – to resistance and complaint, but Castiel ignored him in favour of making his way to the medical room where the body was stored and preparing it, sealing the knife wounds the men from the bar had inflicted on it, then going out into the room for a combat uniform, which he fortunately also had two of. He checked and couldn't sense any reason for which the uniform would have to stay in the room, unlike the second dress uniform.

He monitored Dean as closely as he could without being in a trance while he finished preparing the body, making sure he'd be able to arrive in time. Once he was done he left the body by the door and went up to the controls, closing his eyes to sense again for how long he had until the grenade would land.

His hands flew around the controls, directing it to the appropriate location on the battlefield – there was no point in staying here now that he knew that Dean wasn't meant to come back to the base.

He saw Dean appear on one of the screens showing the view outside the TARDIS, bent over the same man that Cas had seen in his vision.

It was time.

Everything happened quickly; Castiel was outside the TARDIS, Dean's doppelganger's body in his arms. When the grenade was close he dropped the body down beside Dean, the loss of contact making it visible to a confused Dean, who didn't have time to say or do anything before Castiel's hands were on his shoulder, pulling the human to him and covering his ears, encircling both of them with his wings and making them corporeal just in time to shield them from the blast as the grenade made impact.

It was only at this point that Castiel realized that his hands were shaking.

-x-

After the debris around them had finished falling Castiel removed his hands from Dean's ears, but kept his wings around both of them for protection until they took the necessary steps to get into the TARDIS. Once Dean was inside Castiel halted in the doorway momentarily to return his wings to their incorporeal state before stepping inside and closing the door behind him.

“So we good? We fix everything?” Dean asked once Castiel had turned back around to face him.

“If Benny saw the body appear and you disappear the firing of his neurons won't be accurate, but the universe should be able to handle it.”

“I dunno Cas, switching me out back there seemed like a pretty big risk,” Dean said jokingly.

Castiel took his statement seriously. “I will not let you die. You are too important.”


	8. Chapter 8

Dean woke to Castiel's hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake with an edge of urgency. As soon as he opened his eyes Castiel said, “Get up and get dressed quickly. I believe I've located a pocket of your old universe.”

“Sam?” Dean thought out loud, the fog of sleep clearing immediately as he jumped to his feet without a second thought. Castiel was already on his way to the door.

When Dean entered the control room less than a minute later (the TARDIS had had some clothes already set out for him – usually creepy, but at the moment he couldn't care less) he saw Castiel working the controls much faster and with more urgency than usual. Without looking away from the controls Castiel explained the situation to Dean. “I had a program set up to check for signs of your home universe. It picked something up, and I should be able to access a time when you and Sam exist. But you'll have to be quick, it's deteriorating rapidly. There isn't much time.”

“Alright got it,” Dean said, walking around the controls and towards the door. “You coming with?”

“No,” Castiel replied, still working the controls, but Dean was familiar enough with it now that he could tell that Castiel was in the midst of the landing sequence. “I will stay in here so that we can leave as soon as you and Sam are on board. Being in a universe at the moment it resolves is stressful for the TARDIS, and accessing pockets is hard enough on her. Besides, my presence may not be – conducive to convincing Sam to enter the TARDIS.”

“Right,” Dean said, looking away as he realized what he'd have to do. “How long did you say I have?”

“About two minutes, probably less,” came the reply. Dean heard the clunk of the final lever. “Go. Now.”

Dean pushed the doors open and stepped out, surveying the area quickly. The TARDIS had landed in a library of all places (though since they were getting Sam it was hardly a surprise), one Dean didn't recognize. Not that it mattered, because he wasn't going far. His eyes quickly found Sam, dressed in his FBI suit, leaning over a book on a table not six feet from the TARDIS. Cas must have silenced the materialization-whatever, because the only sound in the library that he could hear over his own breathing was the hum of an air conditioner.

Sam looked up, and when he saw Dean there was surprise written all over his face. “Dean? What are you doing? What is that?”

“Not now Sammy, you need to get in the box.”

“What? Why? And where did it come from? Because I'm pretty sure it wasn't there a few seconds ago. I would have noticed-”

“Just trust me Sam okay? Come on.”

“No Dean, first you insist on splitting up and now you want to stick together? Besides I think I've almost found an answer. The-”

“I said not now Sam, we have to leave! Just get in this thing, and if it's nothing then you can just step back out again, alright?”

Inside the TARDIS Castiel was staring unblinkingly at a monitor where the status of the pocket was being displayed. He watched as it cycled through another check, and his eyes widened. He looked out the door, where he could see half of Dean's body and the edge of the table where Sam was sitting. “Dean!” he yelled.

“Coming Cas!” Dean called back, at the same time that Sam was asking, “What the hell was that? Is someone in there?”

“Dean!” he called again, slightly quieter and with more urgency and – was this what panic felt like? All of a sudden Dean felt too far away. “There's a problem, you have fifteen seconds.”

“What? Alright that's it, come on Sammy,” Dean said and moved out of Castiel's view as he walked around the table. He was going to forcibly drag Sam into the TARDIS, but there wasn't time.

“Dean!” he called again, stepping away from the controls and towards the doors.

“Coming,” Dean said with a bit of a grunt, and then everything went black.

Castiel reached out with his time sense, but all he could sense was nothing. He could feel the edges of the TARDIS with his wings and hands, but beyond the door was a complete void where a universe had once been. No time, no space, no light, no sound – and no Dean.

For the first time ever, Castiel felt that there was far too much nothing in the multi-verse.

-x-

Music: [Goodnight, Travel Well by The Killers](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB0lBXEM2_g)


	9. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once you're done listening to [Goodnight, Travel Well](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB0lBXEM2_g) (I'd suggest waiting for it to finish before continuing) you can put on [Slipped Away by Avril Lavigne](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kodr0nR5ULs).
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed my fic, and thanks for reading!

And so ended a chapter in Castiel's long, long life.

He eventually figured out that Dean had been part of events in two universes, both those of his own and those of the twin universe; being part of events in two universes saved him from resolving along with his home universe. Had he remained there, had he not followed Cas into the trees and into the TARDIS, he would have resolved without ill effects and the twin universe would have accommodated for his absence by creating a temporary mirror of his body for the time required to enact the timeline.

Temporary mirrors were unstable by design so Castiel knew that he couldn't risk messing with one, no matter how much he wanted to. He considered finding another Dean, choosing one from any universe in which the human existed, but none of them were his Dean. So he didn't.

Castiel continues to travel the multi-verse in his ship – which he continues to call the TARDIS – in service of the Lord. He remembers the lessons that travelling with Dean taught him, but it's difficult for him to relax, to explore for no reason without the human at his side.

Sometimes he takes on others to travel with him, people he saves, people that should die to maintain order but don't. He takes them from their home universe so that their survival does not adversely affect it. Sometimes they stick around for a while, sometimes they die in action, and sometimes their time together is simply cut short by the natural resolution of their home universe. Castiel has yet to find another anomaly like Dean.

He has yet to find someone with a soul, with a mind anything like Dean's.

And he probably never will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song List:  
> Dean's Theme: [Carry Me Home](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUanPHjen04)  
> Flesh and Bone [(1)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPW0t3ysrGc) [(2)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH1nOfi9rIg)  
> [Goodnight, Travel Well](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB0lBXEM2_g)  
> [Slipped Away](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kodr0nR5ULs)
> 
> I have a few other songs but they don't apply with what I have published right now, so I'll update this list as timestamps and adventures are added :)


End file.
